Monday, August 15, 2005

Copying music now threatens business like file-sharing did

Taipei Times (article)


"Burned" CDs accounted for 29 percent of all recorded music obtained by fans last year, compared to 16 percent attributed to downloads from online file-sharing networks, Mitch Bainwol, chief executive for the Recording Industry Association of America, said on Friday.
The data, compiled by the market-research firm NPD Group, suggested that about half of all recordings obtained by music fans last year were due to authorized CD sales and about 4 percent from paid music downloads.
"CD burning is a problem that is really undermining sales," Bainwol said in an interview prior to speaking before about 750 members of the National Association of Recording Merchandisers in San Diego on Friday.


But...

Yet the recording industry has seen a lift from online music sales, which when factored in with albums and sales of CD singles, increased overall music sales through July to 21 percent over last year.


So overall music sales are up... yet burning is undermining profits... huh?

So their solution:

"If, particularly, the technology allows two-to-three burns, that's well within acceptable limits and I don't think why consumers should have any complaints," Wright said.


I will complain. I will complain because I BOUGHT the CD. That means I OWN the CD. And I can do whatever I want to with the contents of the CD. Three burns mean (I am assuming a rip counts as a burn), once to put on my computer, once for my mp3 player, and once for my car CD player. Good so far except: I am gonna get a new computer soon, so I can't get it on there, my mp3 player has limited capacity so I must delete songs regularly off it, and my CDs for the car can, and do, get scratched, so new CDs will be needed. Three burns is not enough, 25 burns is not enough, unlimited (i.e. no copy protection) is the correct amount.

Oh well, even if they do enact such stupid policies I am sure the cracking community will have fixed problem within a week or so... but if I am downloading a crack to the copyright protection, why don't I just download the music from the net, and save a couple of bucks (and a big headache)?

I am sorry "artists" but when I buy your CD I own a copy of your work. You can not charge me more if I was to listen to them in different places, or if I let my friends to borrow it. And I'm not gonna let the music industry try to tell me otherwise.


3 comments:

hockeyfrog said...

Due to the Home Audio Recording Act of 1992, companies that manufacture recording media (at the time included casette tapes of various forms, and now includes hard drives, CD-R/RW/DVD-R/RWs, removable storage like CF, MS and MMC, etc) put a tax on the items for the very reason that the RIAA and NARM are complaining. Unless the supreme court is going to overturn that, I don't see that it all will be going anywhere.

Hey RIAA, shove it! :D

Michelle said...

it's about time you posted! i've been bored...i'm sick of the music industry...or just the man :)

Anonymous said...

If they want to make it that hard to hear their music, why record it in the first place?

Music is supposed to be a great creative thing to hear. Not people recording noise just to make money.