File sharers are good customers: 2 studies

[DaBees-Knees]

An intersting article that gives it's sources. It also contained the cartoon below, which I liked 


http://www.p2pnet.net/story/39310

[Pri]

The argument by the RIAA in this situation is as follows.

Yes file sharers buy more music than people who do not use file sharing services. However how much more music would these same file sharers buy if they couldn't get it for free? Would they buy more because they can't sample or would they by less because they are more restricted in their ability to sample for free?

Obviously they are on the side that they would buy more because they would take more risks in purchasing albums that they would otherwise download, listen to, and discard if they don't like it.

This is the RIAA's argument and I feel that it is just as legitimate as the alternative. I mean really you can sample music in all places. Every other media type includes music except books.

Movies = Sample Music
TV Shows = Sample Music
TV Advertisements = Sample Music
Radio = Sample Music
Music Videos = Sample Music
Computer Games = Sample Music

And then there are legal ways to sample Music online such as:
iTunes = 30 Second Samples of _all songs_
MySpace = Sample Music on artist pages
YouTube = Artists regularly post their own videos here now like Lady Gaga etc

So basically internet users and indeed casual listeners who consume any kind of media can get a taste of new music from an almost endless amount of sources. Which begs the question would RIAA profits go up if people couldn't pirate anything at all? I actually am going to say yes and agree with them.

[DaBees-Knees]

Pri, You failed to mention music that is deleted from the cartels catalogues which is one of the many reasons for sharing and can't be obtained from any other source than other file sharers. It's not as simple as the case you put.

[Pri]

Such as?

What music has been deleted? Please give an example of at-least 1 song or album. And no I don't think that is a valid reason I have never ever ever had someone say to me that they download illegally because the music they want is no longer available in any legal form what so ever. Never ever.

[Bluey_412]

Acker Bilk - Some of my Favourite Things (UK Release) also sold in Aus, last seen on vinyl about 35 years ago

[Pri]

They have 45 albums by Acker Bilk on iTunes. That includes compilations. I do not know if Some of my Favorite things is a single or an album or a song.

But really the RIAA isn't bothered with people downloading stuff they aren't even selling. They are interested in people pirating new stuff. A single Jay Z album will be pirated more than all the songs no longer sold today combined.

[beerslayer]

Personally, I am not in the slightest interested in Jay Z (whoever that is), so does that mean the RIAA doesn't care about me?  (Actually, they probably don't give a damn about me since I download so little, so rarely.  But I won't say "never"...)

My $0.02: I can't learn what I want to know about an artist from a 30-second sample on Amazon.  I need to listen to several complete songs or even a complete album or two (unless the artist sucks so badly that I can tell in the first ten seconds) before I can form an opinion.

Once I have formed a favorable opinion of an artist, I am quite likely to buy his/her albums legally.  I don't mind buying something I really want, and if I like the music I want the higher quality of the original recording.  But at $20 a pop, I'm not likely to go buy a new, unknown (to me) artist's music at random, especially when so many new artists are utter crap.  (Come to think of it, that may be why the RIAA behaves as it does - they know that most of what they represent is crap and people would never buy it any other way.)

As an example, I had never heard of Iron and Wine until a couple of years ago, when I stumbled on a torrent of one of his albums.  On a whim I downloaded it, listened to it once, burned it onto CD, listened to it a few million more times, then went out and bought that album and two others.  That's business they would never have had if I hadn't downloaded the torrent first.

In short, I think I'm the sort of user that the RIAA would prefer to pretend doesn't exist. 

[GhostShip]

You seem to make a lot of claims regarding what the copyright zealots do and dont care about Pri how have you reached your conclusions ?


I have to say that in the majority of cases I no longer purchase new music as I havent heard of it or the new artist works, thats the problem with demanding revenue for every play, often there is no benefit in playing something new except for the benefit of the copyright maximalists and thus older more familiar music delivers more bang for the buck.

[update]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deletion_(music_industry)

Deletion can be for a variety of reasons, but usually reflects a decline in sales so that distributing the record is no longer profitable.[2] Singles are routinely deleted after a period of weeks, but an album by a major artist may remain in the catalog indefinitely.

Deletion in the music industry differs from print publishing in that recording contracts generally do not return the rights to the artist when a title ceases to be manufactured.

Thus ensuring that when an artists work is deleted they have no way of releasing any of their older work, how monopolistic.

Unlike some here I put my money where my mouth is and refuse to buy or partake of their often crap new product line and the Copyright Cartel will not ever get a single penny from me while they attack us.

[Pri]

You seem to make a lot of claims regarding what the copyright zealots do and dont care about Pri how have you reached your conclusions ?

I asked my friend who is high up with a major label in London. The studio he works for do find Piracy a big issue but they are focused on some very specific types of piracy. Albums/Singles being pirated before the street date and new artists which could be big but have yet to repay back to the studio advertising costs and music production costs. Established acts they are not as worried about but they still see it as a problem.

[GhostShip]

Did you ask your "friend" just why they still invoice the artists for distribution costs at the same rate as physical media for digital downloads ?

Or perhaps why studio time rates are discounted for the cartel but invoiced to the artist at top rates under dodgy deals ?

[Pri]

Did you ask your "friend" just why they still invoice the artists for distribution costs at the same rate as physical media for digital downloads ?

Or perhaps why studio time rates are discounted for the cartel but invoiced to the artist at top rates under dodgy deals ?

Nope.

[GhostShip]

Pity , a lot of artists would like some answers.

[]-[êll.Ôñ.ËÀR'][']-[.]

I asked my friend who is high up with a major label in London. The studio he works for do find Piracy a big issue but they are focused on some very specific types of piracy. Albums/Singles being pirated before the street date

Funny that when single sales in the UK hit a record high in 2009 perhaps that's due to people getting a preview of them to make there minds up before they buy...Album sales were slightly down but that's more due to the fact people can cherry pick artists singles for there own compilations ( legally) so no longer buy so many albums with only a couple of good tracks and the rest drivel....

People these days are becoming a lot wiser and shrewder especially in times of recession such as we have and are experiencing atm .....Amazes me how record company's blame any and everything except themselves for there own shortcomings when with a little common sense they could easily and for free break new artists and keep everyone happy... but i guess they couldn't blame the pirates then for there own shortcomings as these would be the very people who are doing there own promotions for free & making a success of there new artists in doing so allowing them to profit from tours etc where the real money is.

[Pri]

There are lots of ways to sample music without downloading it illegally. I listed quite a few above but just to go over some again. TV Shows, Movies, TV Advertisements, MTV / VH1 and the other 15 dedicated music channels on tv. Myspace, youtube, last.fm etc

Theres no real need to download illegally to sample songs. Some people find these samplying methods so good that they don't even buy the music anymore because the legal ways to sample are that good.

The point that the music industry people are making is. You can play music on their terms on their licensed locations for free. But if you want to keep that music and play it whenever you want you need to buy it

And I just want to point out that there are no pirate sites that let you sample artists before you download. You have to know what you are looking for. You can't go to a torrent site or rapidshare or WinMX and sample an artist out of thin air you first need to download content which requires you to know the artist and/or album you want before you begin. Which makes the sampling via P2P thing a bit moot because you obviously already heard the songs elsewhere to seek them in the first place.

[]-[êll.Ôñ.ËÀR'][']-[.]

Not necessarily.... how many times at work/pub/bar/whatever does someone say did you hear ???? or did you see ??? .... so why would you go buy before you actually heard?
most people would check it out and if they liked it would go buy the album or even better go watch said material on tour or in the cinema.
example ...avatar i got a copy long before it came out here ..... loved it & couldn't wait for it to come out here on the big screen and in 3D.... yet if i hadn't seen it up front i wouldn't have bothered at all & I'm betting most people who wouldn't have usually bothered to go see at the cinema but saw up front  went just for the experience thus putting money back that otherwise they wouldn't have.

There are lots of ways to sample music without downloading it illegally. I listed quite a few above but just to go over some again. TV Shows, Movies, TV Advertisements, MTV / VH1 and the other 15 dedicated music channels on TV. Myspace, youtube, last.fm etc

These are just legalised p2p anyway as most people who use them have ripping software to rip from them & they ain't exactly doing anything to stop it & for one major reason because if they did they would use a good chunk of there userbase the only difference is they are giving payments to the record company's so they are happy to let then continue.

And I just want to point out that there are no pirate sites that let you sample artists before you download

That maybe the case but often i stumble across a torrent or a rapidshare file with a description that gets me curious and download it to check it out & if i like it will more often than not go buy the albums from these artists & try catch them live something that otherwise i would not have seen or heard of.

Its real easy to blame so called pirates for the so called demise of audio/visual material  but do you honestly believe in modern times things would be any better if there was no piracy at all ? i don't think so because as much harm as the cartells claim pirates do you can bet there is a hell of a lot more bands/films out there that would not have been otherwise & they ain't had to pay an extortionate price to company execs  to be recognised  for there talents that they had the god given right to produce.

Hell i know if i had the ability to hold a note of any consequence beyond being given a swift kick in the nuts i would be pimping myself over every p2p/so called pirate site out there to get recognised because i know that natural talent would beat any record company's promotion any day & it wouldn't cost me a fortune in future earnings either.

[GhostShip]

I cant agree with you in general Pri , we have many times all been speaking to folks who have said "hey listen to such and such" and its been as good as they said , without word of mouth a lot of material is simply unknown, as to folks downloading first before hearing it surely that's a contradiction in logic, why are they bothering to download if they already have access to the music.

We all know the cartels rip off both consumers and artists and in general pay little amounts of tax by using their creative accounting methods that they are famous for, I personally wouldn't trust any recording industry exec, they are all raking in large chunks of unearned revenue from other peoples talents and are parasites of such talent, their greed and selfishness is enshrined in their recording agreements that steal most of the artists rights for themselves, supporting such people is morally wrong, supporting artists that have decided they don't need a fat cat bank manager who wants to be paid back 1000's of times their loan value is the way ahead, purchase independent music and let the dinosaurs die, they have stolen enough from us already.

[Bluey_412]

In the words of Pink Floyd:
"Come in here dear boy, Have a cigar, you're gonna go far...

...we call it riding the gravy trainnnnn, yeahh..."

and then: "The band is just fantastic that is really what i think, Oh by the way, which one's Pink?"

Did you EVER stop to think the meaning of those Lyrics?

[Pri]

Whenever someone says to me 'Check out this new song by blah blah' I don't go to a Torrent Site or WinMX. I go to Google. And usually a Youtube link has the top result.

People do not sample via P2P. They download to keep from P2P. They sample from Youtube. Just look at the stats on Youtube to come to that conclusion. Latest Lady Gaga song over 90 Million views. Her album hasn't even been pirated that much from what I can see just on a few Pirate sites which list download numbers.

And I'm not blaming P2P for piracy. I am saying without piracy sales would be higher then they are now. Sales right now are great but they would be even higher without P2P.

I really do not know anyone who when someone says 'Check xyz out' they go to a torrent site. They always go to Youtube first. Perhaps some of you are out of touch with youth culture but Youtube is immediate gratification and P2P is slower if all you want to do is Sample.

But this isn't just confined to Music. As you know I have applications on the App Store by Apple which suffers from Rampant piracy. My apps have Free versions and Paid versions. The paid version do not include advertisements that's is the only difference. And still people pirate it. And when they pirate the one without the ads my sales numbers plummet. Everytime I release a new version the sales are decent right up until the one on the pirate store is updated then the sales drop. So I lose out on both hard revenue and advertisement revenue. On one of my apps there's over 24,000 people using the software who haven't paid for it and it is a pirated version of the paid release thus doesn't include ads and many of them use the app 2-3 times a week. They are keeping these apps on their phones for months and not just sampling they are stealing it to keep it. If they wanted to 'Sample' there is a version including a single ad bar at the bottom of the screen.  

But look I'm not saying I'm right here I'm not saying I have the right answers. This is just my opinion based on the facts available to me.

[]-[êll.Ôñ.ËÀR'][']-[.]

I really do not know anyone who when someone says 'Check xyz out' they go to a torrent site. They always go to Youtube first

You do now 

Latest Lady Gaga song over 90 Million views

Hmmm i wonder why... guess being semi naked in most of her music vids helps that stat a little 

Her album hasn't even been pirated that much from what I can see just on a few Pirate sites which list download numbers

Every album/single/remix/megamix/mash-up/video is on just about every torrent site out there ... just google "lady gaga torrent"

[Pri]

I know the board lets you pick and choose what to quote and reply to and that's great but I touched on some other things that you didn't reply to such as the Application piracy which is a very similar situation to music.

No one needs to pirate to sample there are many legitimate ways to sample music and then buy it. Many of these ways to sample provide the record label with money as-well.