From: owner-basia-digest@smoe.org (basia-digest) To: basia-digest@smoe.org Subject: basia-digest V8 #9 Reply-To: basia@smoe.org Sender: owner-basia-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-basia-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk X-To-Unsubscribe: Send mail to "basia-digest-request@smoe.org" X-To-Unsubscribe: with "unsubscribe" as the body. basia-digest Sunday, January 26 2003 Volume 08 : Number 009 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Royalties; Digital Rights [Lipman_Larry ] Re: Royalties; Digital Rights [jp ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 10:29:08 -0600 From: Lipman_Larry Subject: Royalties; Digital Rights Many of our readers may not be aware of the friction that took place in the early '80s when CDs were first introduced. Some artist and publisher contracts reserved negotiation of royalties on "new media". Other contracts included all new media at negotiated rate, and still others were silent. The labels and distribution channels had a legitimate gripe because the cost to introduce a new format (store fixtures, copies in both vinyl and CD) were considerable. The artists and publishers essentially relented and allowed royalties to stay the same for a period of time. Later, once the transition had taken place, and fixturing costs had been amortized, and the replication cost of a CD was less than vinyl or cassette, there was still considerable resistance by those that paid royalties to paying a higher rate. (Imagine that!) The record industry was in a slump and no one wanted to cut the profit margins. See any parallels? Also consider... Today, we find ourselves in a cycle where the cost to launch a pop artist through traditional channels is extreme (Simon says a couple of million), there is excessive theft of product through the internet (Napster-esque), labels therefore break fewer new acts and are reluctant to take any chances, the public is frustrated and unserved, and therefore goes elsewhere (internet) for source material, this results in fewer sales, and the circle begins again. All I can tell you is...I am in the biz...get free product...and I still bought a lot more records at $12 than I do at $18. Perhaps the industry needs to explore the high volume/low cost model (want fries with that Santana single?) with delivery via the 'net. It'll be interesting to see what happens. There is a lot of filler material on an album which helps the revenue stream and the labels are scared of allowing sale of individual cuts. For instance, I just bought a Linda Eder album where I like maybe half the cuts. As a consumer, I'd be delighted to buy my music $1/cut over the 'net, or $10/album with access to downloadable song info. The whole thing is a fascinating social experiment. Finally, I am extremely scared at the state of consumer digital rights. As many of you may know, there is considerable pressure and activity by the large media owners to inhibit our use of material we own. Be it personal copies of CDs we already own, a limitation on our ability to use our VCRs and TIVOs to time-shift, restrictions on our ability to play CDs on computer CD players, etc. I am quite scared we are being driven down a path where abuse and restriction of freedom of speech are going to be the consequence. For those of you concerned with this, I encourage you to review columns written by Ed Foster (Gripe Line) for InfoWorld, a computer trade magazine. Archives are available for free on their website, and you can sign up to receive the email version for free as well. He can articulate my concerns in a way that my poor ramblings cannot. At 01:15 AM 1/25/2003 -0500, you wrote: ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 11:19:22 -0500 From: "Dennis J. Majewicz" Subject: Re: CD Settlement Hi Larry, I'm not sure what the cut-off is for number of plaintiffs, but the site says that the minimum amount that will be awarded is $ 5.00. If there are too many applicants, and the amount goes less than $5 each, then nothing will be distributed. What bothers me is: what happens to the award at that point? Does it go back to the record companies, or to the government? What about the consumers who were supposedly taken advantage of? The suit was brought because the list of companies ridiculously overcharged for their product. The actual blank CD of course is worth next to nothing, and they aren't compensating the artists properly, so the bulk of the profit goes into the companies' pockets. AND, I haven't seen CD prices drop, either. So, they are found guilty of overcharging the consumers, potentially won't compensate them, and haven't changed their pricing. What was the point of the suit? Oh, I forgot - the lawyers will make money whichever way this shakes out. Thank goodness the legal system still works in this country :-( Dennis ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 16:30:25 -0800 From: jp Subject: Re: Royalties; Digital Rights At 10:29 AM 1/25/03 -0600,Larry wrote: As a consumer, I'd be delighted to buy my music $1/cut over the >'net, or $10/album with access to downloadable song info. The whole >thing is a fascinating social experiment. > In 1999, I was shamefully having to work a legit day job - at an Office Depot (a huge office supply chain in the US). The store employed a lot of 17-23 year olds, and spent a good bit of time talking to them about music and what they saw for its future. They all stole music using Napster, but few really liked it. They all complained about not being able to reliably find the song they wanted, losing their internet connection during download, losing the server during download - all of those things that are problems with p2p. To a person they said they would be very willing to pay $1-$2 to be able to go to a reliable site, such as one operated by a record company, and download a high-quality mp3 (yeah, yeah, audiophiles, I know.) The same year, an organization I'm on the board of put on a showcase and had representatives of record companies attend - Capitol, Columbia, Road Runner, and several others. I tried to talk to the representatives about their need to make music available by download. Not one would even discuss it with me. I think they are being very short sighted, although the problem may be in their thinking they don't have the rights to make the works downloadable. >Finally, >I am extremely scared at the state of consumer digital rights. I am very worried about this, also. The media industry is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars making campaign contributions to US politicians. We now have a way to check up on these folks. OpenSecrets.org is a web site that collects the campaign finance information from candidates and makes it searchable. One can look up a congressman, for instance, and find out how much Disney, for instance, contributed to his campaign. Glenn Reynolds, a law professor at the University of Tennessee and a record producer (www.instapundit.com) has been doing this and now refers to Senator Fritz Hollings of South Carolina as Senator Disney. The RIAA even wanted the authority to remotely hack into the computers of people they suspected of pirating music and disabling their computers. The bill didn't pass in the last Congress, but it could be introduced again. Another person who is keeping up with this stuff is Eric Olsen at Blogcritics.org. The site is also interesting for the reviews of music, books and movies done by ordinary folks - not professional critics. un abrazo, juan ------------------------------ End of basia-digest V8 #9 *************************