$19,344/365 amounts to $53 per day (with the assumption that this restaurant works every day of the week)
Now, most restaurants are not open all day and will have, what, 6 hours of real business per day? That makes almost $9 per hour, which is about the price of a (cheapish) CD, that normally lasts for about that same hour too.
So, essentially, PPCA is asking restaurants roughly the equivalent of what they would pay if every CD they played got destroyed after a single listen. Yep. Makes a lot of sense.
I just love it when clearly stupid and insane money-grabs backfire so spectacularly.
What we need next is the outrage of artists about not getting played in discos due to the inanity of the measure, and their consequent mass exodus from their label.
While Techdirt will argue this point across all forms of content and I agree with most of it, I'm significantly less convinced that this ideology works quite as well with other forms besides music.
Complex PC videogames of the single player variety come to mind as a particularly difficult ones. They tend to be very expensive projects involving a lot people (much more so than producing an album) and by their nature tend to have few real scarcities, and those that exist are often quite gimmicky and secondary, such that they often represent poor reasons to buy for the more casual of gamers.
I must admit that while I usually vigorously defend the perspective that I share with Techdirt, in the case of some videogames and software, I find myself quite at a loss at conceiving workable and *safe* business models based on the premise of 0-cost of the abundant good without forcibly and artificially modifying the nature of an otherwise perfectly valid product.
because now people getting warnings and being kicked off will be more likely than getting sued (or at least that's what they want to make you believe).
You see, the Deterrence Factor is defined as:
DF = Scariness of Punishment x Likelihood of Punishment
(yeah, I pulled that out of my ass, but it's true). Most people didn't give a shit about getting sued because they know how unlikely it is.
However, you're of course right that stopping file-sharing does not equal more buying. At least in my case, it would actually mean the opposite: I have sworn I will actively boycott any company responsible for any warning I might get (not that I consider that very likely).
Additionally, I predict that any people getting warned will likely rather be more careful in the future than stop file-sharing.
"Second, the numbers tell the real truth: The inflation adjusted "real dollar" movie sales, if the industry was flat, should be about 10.9 to 11 billion. instead, it has been flat compared to previous years, which means it is losing income at the rate of inflation. Remember, the costs to make the movies have gone up at least by inflation, but sales have not."
You might have a good point there, though more info than that is still needed to prove it. One thing the numbers DO show, is that the average gross per movie has definitely shrunk. The number of movies produced has doubled, whereas the revenue has stayed about the same. We don't know what the distribution of that revenue is, though, so the "average" doesn't say too much.
To gain more insight about it we also need to know the statistics of the average (and the distribution) of the investment made per movie. You assume here that the cost has stayed the same, adjusted by inflation, thus indicating a "loss", but the fact is that we don't really know how valid this assumption is. It's entirely plausible that the investment has shrunk at the inflation rate, thus negating any "income loss" related to it.
Even if there HAS been a relative loss, it is still far for conclusive that it is due to filesharing without controlling for other factors. With the experience of going to the cinema getting more annoying for several reasons (including piracy hysteria) and the experience of watching movies at home becoming ever better (home theaters and HD), it's hard to know how much of any revenue "loss" has been due to illegal channels instead of shifts in the market caused by legal phenomena.
I'm inclined to think than the "name your own price" model has more value than is usually awarded in this blog, precisely because of the conclusions they reached in the study, which I have long suspected because of my own experience.
People have a vast range of purchasing power and what they feel they can afford will vary a lot too. However, I think most will *always* prefer the official product (as long as it's not somehow crippled ¬_¬ cough, DRM, cough). By fixing a price in the age of piracy, companies are likely to lose everyone under that price to it, which I suspect is a very significant proportion of revenue.
Of course, there is a risk that the total revenue will actually be smaller than the fixed one, but I think some measures could be taken to supplement this (such as a minimal price and some "added value" price points).
After all, Techdirt's CwF+RtB is already kind of doing it with the different levels.
Napster (which can be said kickstarted the whole filesharing craze) started out in 1999, so we are barely hitting the ten years mark now. Things should start gradually getting alright now... :)
1) Everything that’s already in the world when you’re born is just normal.
2) Anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it.
3) Anything that gets invented after you’re thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it, until it’s been around for about ten years, when it gradually turns out to be alright, really.
He's not talking about building a replica and going on to selling it. He's merely talking about building a replica for yourself. If that's against the law, then fuck the law and if that's against your morals, then fuck your morals. Definitely not against mine.
If you read the actual article, you'll see that there is a sound rationale behind the system, which switches off automatically after the car reaches 12 mph, when the sound of the tires is deemed loud enough to serve as warning. While I regard this sound to be pretty useful, I'm of the opinion that engine noise is more of an annoyance than it is worth at high speeds.
However, I dread the idea of an advent customizable "car-tones" for people to broadcast their "individuality" to unsuspecting bystanders. I'd rather have a lorry roaring at my side than some moron pumping some Jay-Z at me because he finds it cool. People need to keep their fucking music inside their cars, not outside.
A great deal of it is the fact that, the way things work, money calls money. As long as you don't get stupid, the more money you have, the easier you can make more money. Heck, given enough money, you can live a decent life merely off the interest.
RSS
Twitter
A little math... (as Headbhang)
To illustrate just how absurd the fees are.
$19,344/365 amounts to $53 per day (with the assumption that this restaurant works every day of the week)
Now, most restaurants are not open all day and will have, what, 6 hours of real business per day? That makes almost $9 per hour, which is about the price of a (cheapish) CD, that normally lasts for about that same hour too.
So, essentially, PPCA is asking restaurants roughly the equivalent of what they would pay if every CD they played got destroyed after a single listen. Yep. Makes a lot of sense.
Re: Wow (as Headbhang)
Amazing, isn't it? It looks like they are run by the most absolute of morons without a single drop of common sense.
Quite beautiful, actually. (as Headbhang)
I just love it when clearly stupid and insane money-grabs backfire so spectacularly.
What we need next is the outrage of artists about not getting played in discos due to the inanity of the measure, and their consequent mass exodus from their label.
Re: Re: Re: *Applause* (as Headbhang)
But music is probably where this applies best!
While Techdirt will argue this point across all forms of content and I agree with most of it, I'm significantly less convinced that this ideology works quite as well with other forms besides music.
Complex PC videogames of the single player variety come to mind as a particularly difficult ones. They tend to be very expensive projects involving a lot people (much more so than producing an album) and by their nature tend to have few real scarcities, and those that exist are often quite gimmicky and secondary, such that they often represent poor reasons to buy for the more casual of gamers.
I must admit that while I usually vigorously defend the perspective that I share with Techdirt, in the case of some videogames and software, I find myself quite at a loss at conceiving workable and *safe* business models based on the premise of 0-cost of the abundant good without forcibly and artificially modifying the nature of an otherwise perfectly valid product.
Re: (as Headbhang)
Nah, if anything, the B* counterparts. :P
Presumably... (as Headbhang)
because now people getting warnings and being kicked off will be more likely than getting sued (or at least that's what they want to make you believe).
You see, the Deterrence Factor is defined as:
DF = Scariness of Punishment x Likelihood of Punishment
(yeah, I pulled that out of my ass, but it's true). Most people didn't give a shit about getting sued because they know how unlikely it is.
However, you're of course right that stopping file-sharing does not equal more buying. At least in my case, it would actually mean the opposite: I have sworn I will actively boycott any company responsible for any warning I might get (not that I consider that very likely).
Additionally, I predict that any people getting warned will likely rather be more careful in the future than stop file-sharing.
Re: (as Headbhang)
"Second, the numbers tell the real truth: The inflation adjusted "real dollar" movie sales, if the industry was flat, should be about 10.9 to 11 billion. instead, it has been flat compared to previous years, which means it is losing income at the rate of inflation. Remember, the costs to make the movies have gone up at least by inflation, but sales have not."
You might have a good point there, though more info than that is still needed to prove it. One thing the numbers DO show, is that the average gross per movie has definitely shrunk. The number of movies produced has doubled, whereas the revenue has stayed about the same. We don't know what the distribution of that revenue is, though, so the "average" doesn't say too much.
To gain more insight about it we also need to know the statistics of the average (and the distribution) of the investment made per movie. You assume here that the cost has stayed the same, adjusted by inflation, thus indicating a "loss", but the fact is that we don't really know how valid this assumption is. It's entirely plausible that the investment has shrunk at the inflation rate, thus negating any "income loss" related to it.
Even if there HAS been a relative loss, it is still far for conclusive that it is due to filesharing without controlling for other factors. With the experience of going to the cinema getting more annoying for several reasons (including piracy hysteria) and the experience of watching movies at home becoming ever better (home theaters and HD), it's hard to know how much of any revenue "loss" has been due to illegal channels instead of shifts in the market caused by legal phenomena.
Re: (as Headbhang)
I'm inclined to think than the "name your own price" model has more value than is usually awarded in this blog, precisely because of the conclusions they reached in the study, which I have long suspected because of my own experience.
People have a vast range of purchasing power and what they feel they can afford will vary a lot too. However, I think most will *always* prefer the official product (as long as it's not somehow crippled ¬_¬ cough, DRM, cough). By fixing a price in the age of piracy, companies are likely to lose everyone under that price to it, which I suspect is a very significant proportion of revenue.
Of course, there is a risk that the total revenue will actually be smaller than the fixed one, but I think some measures could be taken to supplement this (such as a minimal price and some "added value" price points).
After all, Techdirt's CwF+RtB is already kind of doing it with the different levels.
Re: The great late Douglas Adams put it best... (as Headbhang)
Napster (which can be said kickstarted the whole filesharing craze) started out in 1999, so we are barely hitting the ten years mark now. Things should start gradually getting alright now... :)
The great late Douglas Adams put it best... (as Headbhang)
1) Everything that’s already in the world when you’re born is just normal.
2) Anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it.
3) Anything that gets invented after you’re thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it, until it’s been around for about ten years, when it gradually turns out to be alright, really.
Re: Re: Huh... (as Headbhang)
Poor publishers, they must have been starving before big mamma gov't came to rescue them with this.
Wonder how much the real authors will get from this...
Re: Dazed and confused (as Headbhang)
He's not talking about building a replica and going on to selling it. He's merely talking about building a replica for yourself. If that's against the law, then fuck the law and if that's against your morals, then fuck your morals. Definitely not against mine.
Re: Re: Re: Proprietary Noises (as Headbhang)
Damn, you have just described my idea of a dystopian future.
Re: deaf law makers (as Headbhang)
If you read the actual article, you'll see that there is a sound rationale behind the system, which switches off automatically after the car reaches 12 mph, when the sound of the tires is deemed loud enough to serve as warning. While I regard this sound to be pretty useful, I'm of the opinion that engine noise is more of an annoyance than it is worth at high speeds.
However, I dread the idea of an advent customizable "car-tones" for people to broadcast their "individuality" to unsuspecting bystanders. I'd rather have a lorry roaring at my side than some moron pumping some Jay-Z at me because he finds it cool. People need to keep their fucking music inside their cars, not outside.
Regarding the food analogy (as Headbhang)
If there were such a food-copying machine and someone tried to break it to protect their business model, not only it'd be silly, it would be immoral.
There is a book (as Headbhang)
There is actually a sci-fi novel about precisely this kind of scenario. Can't remember the title/author of it right now, but will get back if I do.
Now I wonder... (as Headbhang)
Would Alejandro Fernández have seen ANY of the royalties generated by the album if he'd allowed the distribution to go on?
Big labels. Fucking hypocrites.
Live Free (as Headbhang)
LOL. Yeah, I also thought some gullible politicians took Die Hard 4 a bit too seriously...
Re: (as Headbhang)
Uh, right, man... ¬_¬
Re: Re: Re: you know... (as Headbhang)
It's part of it, sure, but not the whole issue.
A great deal of it is the fact that, the way things work, money calls money. As long as you don't get stupid, the more money you have, the easier you can make more money. Heck, given enough money, you can live a decent life merely off the interest.