- There were more services like Spotify and Grooveshark, Netflix and Hulu (but I have some gripes with Hulu). I pay for Spotify, so I'm sure that on some level Universal, EMI, and Sony are benefiting from my vice, but I don't buy music. Other than the luxurious feeling of the cardboard or paper or plastic, what's the point of buying music these days? Nearly every artist these days makes next to nothing from every album purchased. If you really want to support your favorite bands buy a ticket to their concerts and get a shirt while you're there.
- DRM was abolished. I think Louis CK proved that if you offer a superior product to the public DRM free at a realistic price, people will buy it and you, as the artist, will benefit. Radiohead and Girl Talk have also proven this. Each of these artists have offered their works to the public at either a great price point (Louis offering his DRM-free special for five dollars) or at a flexible-price-point ("pay what you want"), and in each case it's worked out wonderfully for them. I don't know if I'm most people, but I'm willing to pay what I think the artist is worth. I'd pay four dollars for the next Katy Perry album and 500 for the next Death From Above 1979 album. I know the biggest flaw with this plan, though, and this is what the labels point to every time - there's a pocket of people who just love stealing. And there are people who will pay a penny for an indie bundle. But I think the indie bundles have proven that people are willing to pay more for a quality product. 20 bucks for an album? No. That's crazy labels, and you should feel horrible for trying that in the late 90s. But I'll pay a lot for an album from an artist that I love.
- Hulu (or similar, legal sites) offered their shows immediately after the show first aired. Most of the television I watch I watch the night it aired, but - since I don't have cable (I don't want to pay 60 bucks a month for the five channels that I'd watch) and digital antennas suck - I download it. If Hulu offered The Office immediately after it aired I'd watch it legally, with ads, and they'd make some money off of it. Can't websites tell which timezone you're in based on your IP address? Then they should know that I'm in the Eastern timezone and know that at 9:30 I want to get my Office on.
Even though I don't anymore. It's kind of a crummy show.
So yeah, tl; dr, I want artists to offer me DRM-free material as soon as possible. I feel like the artist-direct-to-consumer method is not only the best for consumers, but it's also becoming easier for the producers of this content via Youtube, Spotify, and other similar sites. I feel like labels have been obsoleted and they don't want to admit it.
Any input is appreciated. I might be totally flawed and if I am let me know.
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I was just talking to my brother today about that last point, though we were mostly talking about movies. I think a large part of why people pirate movies is they don't want to have to go out to the theater, but they don't want to have to wait for months before being able to see the movie. If the movies were released on DVD/Blu-Ray/Digital Distribution the day of or maybe day after a movie hits theaters, I think they'd see less piracy and more purchases. Obviously the theaters wouldn't like this, but maybe stuff like 3D that can currently only be done well by theaters (since most households don't have 3D TVs yet) will keep people going there.
I'm also not sure if studios make more money from ticket sales or retail sales, that probably makes a difference.
The quality is important too. For the most part, no one is offering music in FLAC, or perfect rips/dumps of old games, or lossless video. You can pretty much only pirate to get any of those things. It's tough to justify spending $10 on iTunes when you're getting lossy music, and tough to spend $5 on a Wii NES game when the game is running on a hacked up emulator that will only run on Wii.
Loss/accurate stuff is important because it preserves the game/music/whatever as intended and first delivered, and in some cases it's the best way to ensure longevity/portability. It's way better to have an accurate dump of an NES rom and have people write accurate emulators for whatever platform it'll run on than the weird platform-specific stuff they chuck together on modern consoles.
Yep. I can't wait till companies start finding out that people will actually pay for digital distribution if they don't try to rape the consumers and we can usher in a golden age of not needing to pirate anything because we'll be able to obtain it all legally, conveniently, and at prices that are beneficial to both sides.
I completely agree with Icon. Except that I buy CDs instead of Vinyl and only because it's an easier format and it's cheaper. And I buy those CDs just to have them in my collection, I rarely play them outside of the car. It's mostly favorites too. I have never paid for mp3s though. Even with In Rainbows, I just downloaded it for free and bought it in stores after. I just like having a collection of music in my room and stuff.
From: OmarsComin | #006 For the most part, no one is offering music in FLAC
What? Apart from iTunes and Amazon, everyone offers FLAC. It kinda sucks that the two biggest digital music retailers don't offer lossless music -- which doesn't seem to be a big deal to most of the people who use both services -- but if you're buying music that isn't offered from a major label, it's pretty easy to find a service (or even the label itself) that will offer the album to you in FLAC.
From: SMOKEDOG42O | #001 what's the point of buying music these days?
Supporting the artists you like and getting a quality product in return. I think this should be rephrased as "what's the point of buying CDs these days?" No one uses them any more. If you're buying a CD, you're probably just doing it to rip the audio to your computer and put it on a mobile device, and then putting the CD in storage. At best, it's a perishable container for a FLAC file. Maybe you'll play it in your car, but odds are that if you're still buying CDs in 2012, you probably have an iPod or similar device that you can hook up to your car in one of a dozen cheap ways. There are three formats you can purchase music: digital files, CDs, and vinyl. Of those three, only CD sales are dropping. We should just get rid of them.
I love buying vinyl. It's a completely different listening experience. It's a little pricey to get started -- refurbishing a record player with a new cart, needle, and speakers can run about $200 -- but I think it's worth it if music is one of your passions. It's reminiscent of buying music before 2000, too. You don't want to buy everything (a problem that digital music exacerbates, with all of the ways we can acquire every album we want) , so you're forced to curate your own collection. Some albums are ridiculously rare, or only available at an overseas seller that charges crazy money for shipping, and so you ask yourself if these albums are worth it. Your willingness to pay a decent chunk of cash for an album is a good sign that it's one of your favourite pieces of music.
I don't like paying for digital music, and I don't like the current subscription models out there. Why would I pay rdio, Spotify, or some other service money to access their library when I already have a great personal collection, and Google Music will let me store it on their service for free? But I do think there is potential for subscription services, at least from my perspective. Stones Throw (one of my favourite labels) just announced a digital subscription service. Pay $10 a month, and they'll mail you DRM free MP3s of every new release on their label. That's a pretty cool way to support something I like! There's room to expand this service, too. They should probably let you access their entire library, but only on a browser or through a mobile app, and maybe they should offer you a discount at their online store, but it's still a cool idea to start out with. I'd love for other labels to get behind this model - Merge, Matador, Hyperdub, Honest Jon's, Warp, etc. It's something smaller labels can do to build a better rapport with their fans.
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From: WazzupGenius00 | #003 I think a large part of why people pirate movies is they don't want to have to go out to the theater, but they don't want to have to wait for months before being able to see the movie. If the movies were released on DVD/Blu-Ray/Digital Distribution the day of or maybe day after a movie hits theaters,
I think this was actually hurt the industry, especially movie theaters.
I agree with quicker than it is currently (maybe about 90 days) but a day after? That will kill hype on so many movies, hurting the box office and dvd sales, because people will be less likely to buy both
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From: the icon ownz all | #008 I love buying vinyl. It's a completely different listening experience. It's a little pricey to get started -- refurbishing a record player with a new cart, needle, and speakers can run about $200 -- but I think it's worth it if music is one of your passions. It's reminiscent of buying music before 2000, too. You don't want to buy everything (a problem that digital music exacerbates, with all of the ways we can acquire every album we want) , so you're forced to curate your own collection. Some albums are ridiculously rare, or only available at an overseas seller that charges crazy money for shipping, and so you ask yourself if these albums are worth it. Your willingness to pay a decent chunk of cash for an album is a good sign that it's one of your favourite pieces of music.
This right here.
The feeling of actually getting an album I love is phenomenal. Yeah, I had it already on CD probably, but I remember every vinyl I've ever bought of ordered (save the ones I was gifted in bulk). And it's a completely different experience, even beyond music quality. Having a record player going in a room is just a different atmosphere than you can get from plugging an ipod into speakers.
Now, don't get me wrong, I love having tons of music at my fingertips for everyday listening and I'm not a music snob. Hell, I'm not even music knowledgable, and I am too lazy to care about flac even! But I love the other option of a more tangible connection with what music I do really like.
**** now I want to make a topic soliciting recommendations for my record collection.
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s far as movies go, 60-90 days from theater to dvd/bluray would be perfect.
You get the initial run for the main theaters for 4-6 weeks, a few weeks for the lower cost budget theaters to run with along with on demand access and then a small window before it's available for purchase.
Back before it was super common, I got someone to pirate a copy of two towers for me. I had seen it in the theater like, 12 times, and it was going to be 4 or 5 months or something like that before it hit dvd (of which I was going to buy the collectors edition), but I still wanted to watch it again. So, I had my illegal copy of the movie that I watched and actually had a co-worker who just couldn't believe I would do such a thing (I was working for a video store at the time). I was like "how am I hurting anyone? I saw the movie 12 times in theater and I'm buying the dvd day one?" and he was just like "well it's just wrong!"
Hell, I bought the collectors edition and then turned around and bought the extended edition when it was later released.
So who did I hurt? =P
Anyways, yeah...the time from theater to dvd/blue ray release is just entirely too long.
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From: AlecTrevelyan006 | #015 HBO Go nailed it with Game of Thrones last year, having the episodes up simultaneously.
Of course, you needed to have am HBO subscription...
I'd gladly pay a subscription fee for HBO Go just for their shows. Sadly I don't have cable and i'm not paying the stupidly high price for cable for 3 or 4 channels I'd actually watch and then another fee for HBO. :/
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I'd also say a big part of pirating is that people like instant gratification. If I have a friend over and I want to introduce them to a show that I watch and I don't own the DVDs and it's not on Netflix/Hulu, I have three options left. I can drive to a store and hope they carry it at a reasonable price, I can order it online, or I can pirate. Even if I'm willing to pay the $20 for the product, pirating will give it to me instantly. I guess I could try a direct download service, but I feel like if I'm paying $20 for a season of something I'd rather have a physical copy.
From: MarvelousGerbil | #018 I'd also say a big part of pirating is that people like instant gratification. If I have a friend over and I want to introduce them to a show that I watch and I don't own the DVDs and it's not on Netflix/Hulu, I have three options left. I can drive to a store and hope they carry it at a reasonable price, I can order it online, or I can pirate. Even if I'm willing to pay the $20 for the product, pirating will give it to me instantly. I guess I could try a direct download service, but I feel like if I'm paying $20 for a season of something I'd rather have a physical copy.
Definitely. Not to mention if you have a physical copy (or the pirated version) you don't ever have to worry about a service going offline or anything like that preventing you from being able to verify your license to own and watch it.
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What? Apart from iTunes and Amazon, everyone offers FLAC. It kinda sucks that the two biggest digital music retailers don't offer lossless music -- which doesn't seem to be a big deal to most of the people who use both services -- but if you're buying music that isn't offered from a major label, it's pretty easy to find a service (or even the label itself) that will offer the album to you in FLAC.
Who is offering FLAC? I'm mostly just aware of iTunes and Amazon, since they're the biggest like you said. I know some independent/small people are but there's not a lot of coverage there.
The rest holds, though! No one I'm aware of is selling accurate dumps of games and saying "play it on whatever platform you want." That's how game preservation should be handled.
Yeah content providers are pretty much pretending that structural unemployment is not a thing. They need to update their business models to offer better services if they want to survive; no amount of b****ing about piracy is going to change that.
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HBO for me is $8-9 a month and I can watch their series and movies on my laptop, phone, mp3 player, tv, etc. Plus you get like 9 channels if you just like to flip around.
I will say it's cool that one of the most popular bands among savvy people and possibly the best comedian alive were able to do well, but I'll be interested to see what would happen if everyone tried to do that. I do agree that we need an updated model for purchasing music that fills the gap between CDs and downloading off of Amazon that isn't an iTunes gift card. I don't think anyone made that point explicitly so I am agreeing with myself. woot.
One big problem I observe is how the music industry has done a poor job with college kids. Savvy, modern and actively interested in music, you can't tell these people they need to spend $15.95 at FYE for a Linken Park album to satisfy their music needs.
neonreap posted... One big problem I observe is how the music industry has done a poor job with college kids. Savvy, modern and actively interested in music, you can't tell these people they need to spend $15.95 at FYE for a Linken Park album to satisfy their music needs.
FYE may be the worst company in the world. Maybe it's just the one near me, but they almost never reduce the prices of anything. A month ago I saw Volume 1 of Aqua Teen Hunger Force for $35. Seriously, what the hell is this?