Advert about downloading music

kida

Will it change peoples habits? Personally don't think so - notice they do not have any famous musician doing the ad.

Basq

Haven't seen this ad - but saw the new ad against downloading movies in the cinema last week. Funny stuff!

But regarding the downloading music ad - there's plenty of music artists that are all for downloading - Thom Yorke of Radiohead spring to mind!

"The cool thing about Napster is that it encourages enthusiasm for music in a way that the music industry has long forgotten to do". Thom Yorke (Radiohead),
(this quote was when Napster was still a big thing!)

simu

No, people won't forget those "bling-blingest musicians ever" programmes in a hurry.

Pigman II

basquille wrote:

Haven't seen this ad - but saw the new ad against downloading movies in the cinema last week. Funny stuff!

The weird thing is UGC and Savoy run strikingly different ads

1) UGC's is in stark yellow/black and basically says 'pirate this film and you're gonna get fined and/or thrown in jail'.

2) The savoy one is more along the lines of 'Hey bud! You wouldn't steal a mobile phone would ya? You wouldn't steal a laptop, so why steal this movie? It's not cool dude! K? Now lets go skateboarding....'

I wonder which'll be more effective in the long term?

aidan_walsh

You know it would be a lot easier to know what you were talking about if you want into a few specifics. I could ask you if you saw the match last Sunday, but do you know whether I mean the one on the telly or the local Sunday League?

What ad? Where did you see it? When did you see it? Where would I be able to see it to be able to talk to you about it?

Waltons

They use very limited examples on the ad (I assume you're talking about the radio one?) It's too easy for people to download music and copy it though for people to just stop doing it because of an advert. Also, the fact that a lot of people would have access to the internet, but not necessarily a credit card is a factor. In that case it's either go into HMV and fork out €20+ or download it for free..Some choice

Boggle

Well I might actually buy more music if they didn't charge an arm and a leg for cd's which generally have only a coule of decent songs and then the rest substandard waffle...

...was in Singapore couple of months back and cd's were only 8-10 euro's a pop and funnily enough I was more inclined to but stuff and try it out....

KdjaCL

has a musician ever stole your money?
has a pianist ever stole your money?

Eh no but they sign contracts which allow record companies to make a cd for 0.01 cent and chage me €20 for it. Feck em Musicians should earn their money from gigs and record comapnies should charge no more than €10 for a cd.

kdjac

ven0m

You know what gets me - if you buy ANY other product or service, you can usually complain about it & possibly get a refund or replacement, yet you cannot with Music or Movies...... we've all been shafted for long enough & sat through enough boring crap movies & bought so many disappointing CD's & had to 'live with it' - I think they've some cheek...

The simple fact of the matter is that the reason the music industry is losing money is NOT due to piracy, but due to them paying exorbetant amounts of money towards artists who don't sell (Mariah Carey is a great example - Virgin made her contract the most expensive ever in the industy, her album was crap & didn't sell & they had to fork out another 30 million to buy her out of it) or towards 'one hit wonders' or 'manufactured' crap & then wonder where it went wrong! it's just pure ignorance & were it any other business, CEO's would be fecked out on their ears by the boards.....

//END_RANT


::: ven0mous :::

ShiverinEskimo

What really pisses me off about the whole thing is the "your harming the artists". Bollocks. The artists these days are on a salary with expenses basis. They get paid their money regardless of sales. Its the record companies that are losing out and no one wants to listen because for years they have been ripping us off. Releasing singles with the same song remixed 4 times and charging 7 or 8 euro? and you wonder why we download.

Single sales are down in the last 5 years. - fair enough
Album sales are up though. Ie. peopel are downloading tracks, they like em so they buy an album.
Pete Waterman was interviewed about the court cases in england. He is one of the main reasons that b-sides are getting more scarce by the week.
Tell you one thing pete, you start charging a reasonable price for your cd's and we'll think about it. Until then, stop pretending its the artists that are suffering, when we all know its your wallet. (this goes to all the other record company boses)
Bastards!

Crucifix

I found an old NME magazine lying around recently, which had a big article about MP3s (prior to Napster). I found the interview with some record exec saying it was all hype, and mp3s were laughable as a threat to the music industry, quite amusing indeed.

EKRIUQ

Boggle wrote:

...was in Singapore couple of months back and cd's were only 8-10 euro's a pop and funnily enough I was more inclined to but stuff and try it out....

I was in Thailand recently and in Music shops CDs were only €4 and the more you bought the cheaper they got, all inside cards were in English and there the exact same you get here

John R

There was some IRMA pr1ck on the rte two news last night with the "we know who you are and are going to get you" line.

Waltons

There was a debate on primetime a while ago about mp3s and how they're 'killing the music industry' but, unfortunately, BOTH sides in the debate were completely laughable. The IRMA fella was completely stumped after his iTunes suggestion was put down by the fact that we can't get it yet (apparently. I don't know myself) He just couldn't get over that fact. It appeared to be his backup in the event that anything should not go his way (which, of course, it did).
Unfortunately the opposition was equally as bad. He didn't really provide a decent argument as to why people download (apart from prices in local shops)
Oh well....

Doper Than U

What really pisses me off about the whole thing is the "your harming the artists". Bollocks. The artists these days are on a salary with expenses basis. They get paid their money regardless of sales

Not quite sure where you got that from, it's simply untrue. I've never heard of ANY record company agreeing to something like that, it could be disastrous for them. If you're referring to, say, Robbie Williams who recently signed a deal for $80 million, he doesn't actually get this money until he sells a certain amount of records. This is the same for every artist, REM, U2, Madonna etc etc. If he doesn't sell, he doesn't get the money, simple as that. Also, many people assume that the record company pays for videos, tours, travel, hotels etc etc. They don't. (although in one or two cases the artist has managed to negotiate a certain amount to go towards these costs) The artist pays for ALL those things out of their own pocket. If they are a band just starting out, the record company loans them the money, and re-coups it as soon as the artist sells, BEFORE the artist ever sees a penny. You are right when you say that the record company makes most of the money, they take a DISGRACEFUL percentage.

At the end of the day, it does hurt the artist when people download, if there is no money coming in, the record company won't pay them, they get no royalties, and they still have to pay back the loan to the record company for costs incurred while making and promoting the album.

Hobbes

http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=2320

Capt'n Midnight

KdjaC wrote:

has a musician ever stole your money?
has a pianist ever stole your money
.. why are you harming us ?

that ad made my blood boil - sounds like some marketing gimp made it up, as it compares unalike things. If you buy two grey import CD's then the Artist gets the same royalty as if you bought one locally. Only one getting left out are the middlemen. You can't put the genie back in the bottle. Bluetooth ipody thingies are possible so sharing with total strangers on a bus etc. is not fantasy. Even if you lock down the format people can still make WAV's from line in , not CD quality but good enough for MP3's.

CD's are given free with newspapers so they can't cost that much to make when you take out the music industry overhead. If you take the piss with the price of your product / rub peoples faces in it by offering the same product else where for less especially when it is so easy to copy and so freely available (just how long would you have to wait to tape a chart song off the radio) then the impression given is that you are trying to squeeze the maximum profit from the lowest inventory/delivery of product. On the other hand it would be interesting to see what would happen if one company were to halve the price of its chart singles (not just one or two back catalog records)

Doper Than U

Cd's cost 50p to make. Albums cost $100,000's to make (studio time costs a fortune).
Record companies take up to 90% of the sales (yes 90%!!), THEN they re-coup their expenses from the artists 10% (out of which they also have to pay travel costs, hotels etc etc). Even more scandalous, is the retailer, who take about 15-18 euro out of a 20 euro cd. The retailer fixes prices, the artist CANNOT specify cost of their cd's.

I personally can't wait for good downloads that DRASTICALLY cut the middleman expenses, and give the artist the fair share they deserve. Why people think they shouldn't be paid for making music so that it can be available to the public is beyond me. If any artist wishes to give their music away for free, then that is their prerogative. If artists wish to be paid for the work they do, and expenses they incur to do that work, then that is their prerogative.

secret_squirrel

The record companies also assume that anyone who is downloading an mp3 would have bought the Cd - and more crucially still wont go out a buy a cd.

Both of which are not necessarily true. People are willing to download stuff on mp3 to listen to to see if they like it - but crucially they would never dream of buying it. Therefore argueable no sales have been lost in this case - but crucially their product is reaching a wider audience.

Also there have been a number of artists whose CD's and back catalogs I have bought simply because I downloaded some of their tracks.

Some interesting and thought provoking articles on the register
here
here
and here

ShiverinEskimo

Doper Than U wrote:

he doesn't actually get this money until he sells a certain amount of records. This is the same for every artist, REM, U2, Madonna etc etc. If he doesn't sell, he doesn't get the money

Tell me then, why did they have to buy Mariah Carey out of her contract when they realised it was not going to sell feck all?
Why not just NOT pay her when sales don;'t reach the targets?

Plus you name the big artists. The likes of busted, and rachel stevens and all of them low key affairs (that when pu together are bread and butter for some record companies, are all on a set salary a year. Busted were on 24k each a year plus travel and food. Rachel stevens on 50k a year plus travel and food.
It was printed in one of the tabloids. I know I know, tabloids. But why lie about this? Record companies take massive risks when they sign an artist because they sign a contract to pay them, If it was based on sales then why not take every tom dick and harry on and laugh at them when they sell like one album. I'm not saying its all done like above, but my argument stands that some artists in fact do not lose out by downloaded music.

Doper Than U

The reason they had to but Mariah out of her contract is because they can't just end the contract just because they no longer want her on their label. Just as she can't just leave the label if she feels like it. Thats why it's a "Contract". They really didn't want her to stay, so they in effect paid her to leave, coz legally they can't turn around and turf her out. (if they did she could sue for millions more than what she got).

If it was based on sales then why not take every tom dick and harry on and laugh at them when they sell like one album.

That was my WHOLE point! It cost thousands and thousands to record an album in a studio. The penniless artist cannot pay for this, so a record label signs them and pays the costs for them, and "re-coups" the money when the artist sells. To pay that much money to have the artist sell only one 16 euro cd would be the worst business decision in the history of mankind!


As for Busted etc, I HIGHLY doubt that they are paid like that. If they are they are idiots and deserve to lose their money. They would make far more by conducting their business in the standard way. Someone is taking them for a ride BIG TIME. 24k each per year??? The record compnay will be making millions off them.

The only reason I am so sure of what I'm saying is that I work in the music industry and know how it works. What I say is not opinion, it is fact.

Artists do lose out by downloaded music, UNLESS it is music that is not available for purchase anyway (eg, a live concert that wouldn't be released for purchase).
If the artist gets 50p (and thats a standard cut btw) from every cd sold, imagine how many cd's it takes for them to actually make money? Now think of how much it costs them when THOUSANDS of their songs are downloaded instead of bought.

There is a huge discrepancy between artists and writers here. Artists who don't write their stuff, don't make as much money as artists that do. This is why you see some top artists who don't make as much money as their peers who actually write their own stuff.

ShiverinEskimo

Are you simon cowell?

Doper Than U

Lmao!!!! !!!! No I'm not.. lol.. nothing like him. I think he's evil.

Moriarty

Downloading music or films off the net isn't theft, it's copyright infringement.

Any music I actually _like_, I generally buy.

As long as the music industry equates downloading something off the net with walking into a shop and stealing a cd, they wont stand a chance in getting people to change their attitudes. (Not that they'll change their attitudes without reducing prices significantly anyway..)

Doper Than U

Downloading music or films off the net isn't theft, it's copyright infringement.

I'm afraid the law doesn't agree with you on that point.

But I agree that prices are absolutely ridiculous.

Capt'n Midnight

Not is downloading illegal, and killing music but there is the social stigma assocaited with it, why it's nearly as bad as having someone find out that you havent got a TV license..

One reason for the bustle was that over large parts of the continent other people preferred to make money without working at all, and since the Disc had yet to develop a music recording industry they were forced to fall back on older, more traditional forms of banditry.

fragile

If I pay €15 for an album in a music store, I am not paying them this for the physical CD or the cheap plastic cover, I am paying for the music. So, if something happens to the CD, I should be able to get this music again, less the replacemnt cost of a blank CD and case ~€0.50. But I can't, the music industry insists that I pay them another €15 for music that I have already paid for the right to own and listen to :mad: so fu(k them, it is not copyright infringement if I downlaod something that I have already paid for (regardless of what the law says, it is bloody common sense).

Doper Than U

Yep I have to agree with that, I wouldn't pay twice for the same album. Point is though, most people who d/l music won't even pay once for it.

dangerman

ah...my favourite subject....

so...lets see...

First of all: Downloading music for free is wrong. However you justify it, it's completely wrong. You're harming artists.

Lets look at it in a bit more detail. First of all, the arguement 'you wouldn't steal a mobile/laptop' - well, theres a key difference there.

If I steal your laptop, i deprive you of its use, which makes me a very bad person and is morally reprehensible. If I copy your music, you still have the music, so in that sense i'm not depriving anyone of anything. - In the information age a copy is perfect, a copy of a copy of a copy is perfect - so fundamentally the situation is different from the get-go. Downloading music is not theft in the traditional sense. IMRO etc. would love people to blindly agree that copyright infringement is theft in the traditional sense but it is not. The right to music is an intellectual property right, not an actual property right. It's a right granted by law and most importantly a LIMITED right.

So...What's being downloaded?

Old Music
So what's bad about that? It's copyrighted, for sure, but if its not commercially available then you can't really complain about someone downloading it for free - if its not commercially viable to sell it, then its not fair to sue someone for obtaining that song.

New Music

A lot of people I know download a few tracks from an album and then go and buy it. This only benefits the record industry.

There are of course a group of people who will never buy stuff, they'll go out of their way to seek out music for free.

So what your left with is copyright violators going at it like rabbits downloading like crazy. Just look at South Korea, where broadband penetration is five times the EU average:
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=internetNews&storyID=6462066

So what do you have now?
We've got the international crackdown on file sharers:
http://p2pnet.net/story/2668

File Sharing is the killer app of broadband. It's obvious, it's staring everyone in the face and thank god the US courts in the Grokster case stopped the MPAA/RIAA etc. making file sharing apps illegal. (of course they're appealing it to the supreme court.) File sharing/p2p is an excellent technology thats enabling all sorts of applications and will continue to do so in ways we cant think of yet. The Grokster case was important: Just because a technology has a potentially illegal use, doesn't mean it's illegal.

So there's a bigger problem - technology is rampantly breaking down traditional barriers to super-high levels of piracy - I don't think it would be incorrect to say that downloading everything for free - movies/apps/music is almost a social norm across the world in more affluent, wired youth cultures.

The INDUCE act in the states is the RIAA/MPAA's answer, and it points towards a much much much worse outcome than the current situation of sueing kids.

INDUCE set out to reign in the underlying technologies that have allowed the above situation to occur. iPod's play MP3's ...RIAA/MPAA don't like that because MP3 is not a controlled file format. It's got no DRM (Digital Rights Management) meaning they can't control what happens. INDUCE, effectively would give big business veto over new technology - it would make it illegal to create a technology with copyright infringing uses.

...SAVE BETAMAX!! In 1984 in the US the supreme court ruled that Sony could make the VCR because it had substantial non-infringing uses. So Bit Torrent is legal because you can download the US Presidential debates on it. But INDUCE would reverse that. http://www.savebetamax.org/

The danger of all this is that culture would be surpressed because technology would be controlled through law such as INDUCE and culture controlled through ever increasingly ridiculous IP-laws. The balance of culture has been tipped in favour of big business, and it's up to us kiddies to stop them.

up until a while ago copyright law didn't really matter that much because the laws of physics limited piracy - copies of copies degraded, you only had access to music in your circle of friends etc. The problem is machines dont care about fair use - a law enshrined in computer code is unbendable. So thats why you have the case now where if you download an album of music off iTunes you can do LESS with it than if you bought the bloody cd!

I think/hope technology will save us before big business can stop it though. Innovation is a beautiful thing, and so far:

"The internet treats censorship as damage and routes around it."

Thank **** for that.

Find out more about all of this: http://www.lessig.org/blog/ - his books are excellent introductions to this whole area and this whole fight. On my site [see sig] is a project i did for college which might give u a bit of an idea but its out of date now and honestly just a bit crap.

edit: i left out the whole thing about copyright being ridiculously extended (everytime mickey mouse is about to enter the public domain copyright is extended) derivative works all that jazz...i'm too tired.

eoin_f

personally i have downloaded quite an amount of songs from the internet, those i have enjoyed i have bought (go on the amp fiddler and crazy penis) , those i have not i just delete, through recomendations many of my friends have bought albums, this cannot be a bad thing can it? i do not believe in fleecing a good band/group but on the other hand do not believe in funding cheap chart acts, is it not my choice to do so!?

when anyone of us listens to the radio we can copy any song to tape, who is the greatest producer of generic blank tapes, cd's and dvd's?? could any of the major music companies hava shares in this, for example s0Nie prodce millins of blank media per annum (i would say per minth but i dont have the figures). can they just decide what side of the bed they want to sleep in???,

Superman

Well if an artist wants some money they can play a few shows!
And I also think usher is the last person that needs my money.

cournioni

Notice Metallica played at the Download Rock Festival in England this year... What hypocrites.

Sleepy

Is the net killing music? Boll0x. I haven't bought so many albums since I got my first summer job at the age of 15. Since cdwow, play and other sites like them have entered the market I can buy mainstream, current, classic and unheard of stuff for a reasonable(ish) price.

I've got thousands of MP3's in the same fashion as I'd hazard a guess that lots of others here have. Most of these are from CD's I already own, from CD's I consequently purchased, from live performances or copyright free stuff. Maybe another 5% of stuff comes from one-hit wonders or bands I'd never have bought a CD from because I only liked 2 songs on the album.

Singles sales are dropping for a number of reasons:

1. Compared to Albums, they're sh:t value for money
2. Terrible output by most of the pop industry
3. Compilation Albums - Now XX, Smash hits etc. all bring out albums with the pop songs that the kids want. Why would they buy 4 singles and a heap of remixes when they could get the last month's top 40 for the same price?
4. Affluence - We ahve more money now, people can afford the albums instead of just their favourite song from it.

Deadwing

Its basically like the publicans whinge over the smoking ban. "Oh its putting us out of business cause noone wants to drunk anymore". Of course people want to drunk, numbnuts.They just dont want to pay E5+ for a pint. Sure its affected your business some, but its your extortionate prices that are really f*cking you up. Likewise, noone wants to pay E22 or so for a cd. So while downloading may be hurting the industry, its overblown prices are hurting it even more.

Anyway, what id like to know is...just how do they plan on catching people? Knock door to door and ask to inspect your hard drive??

jor el

Doper Than U wrote:

The retailer fixes prices, the artist CANNOT specify cost of their cd's.

Are you sure about that? I bought The Revs - Suck album when it first came out, and it was only €10 where as just about every other album on the shelf beside it in HMV was between €18 and €25. I suspect this price was set by the band (who were on their own record label).

Does anyone know how exactly the MPAA/RIAA etc track down the file sharers? Is it a case of sharing the files themselves and then whatching who downloads from them?

ShiverinEskimo

I think -not sure though - that ISP are required by law to present incriminating evidence is a similar fashion to child porn downloaders.
If its a crime, and a telecoms company with phone logs and/or SMS messages or an isp with email or download logs can provide evidence of the crime then i think they must give it up.
But i reckon data protection prevents anyone just browsing the above logs to find culprits. So there's a half way. Perhaps ISP's are obliged to provide what they believe is incriminating evidence. Best ask someone in the High Tech crimes division of some police force or perhaps Garda Liason for an ISP..

Ciaran500

I don't think any of the ISP provide any info unless they are requested. I've never heard of ISP forwarding any incrimanating evidence to the Gardai. If that was the case alot of us would be f*cked.

aidan_walsh

dangerman wrote:

First of all: Downloading music for free is wrong. However you justify it, it's completely wrong. You're harming artists.

Unless of course, the artist is aware, and is using the jammy-bastard element of the internet to spread awareness of their stuff. I think a better point to make is that the most of what you say applies only to artists who are under contract with record companies.