Breaking the grip of the corporations: The artists fight back
Today, the ever-changing and innovative English band, Radiohead , announced they are taking control of all the aspects that the four giant music industry corporations once had a stranglehold of: distribution and pricing. Did they have to change their name, create a new symbol, and tattoo themselves with the word 'slave' in order to wait-out their record contract and get control of their career a la Prince/AFKAP
? Hey, Radiohead is brilliant and slightly eccentric, but not that crazy.
Instead the band reported today that they are going to let fans determine the price of their new album, In Rainbows, through negotiation on their website .
Radiohead Plays 'New Tune' With Fans Setting CD Price
Pricing Rules? Radiohead, the British band, is ignoring them entirely. Now that the band has fulfilled its relationship with EMI music label and is on its own, it's letting its fans decide how much to pay for its new 10-song album. The new album called "In Rainbows" will initially be only available on the band's Web site. And fans name the price. The site acknowledges the weirdness--"no really, it's up to you"--the site says.
This is the ultimate test of the theory that fans will pay for music. And they'll choose to pay a reasonable amount. But will Radiohead just end up giving away its music for free? The rest of the music industry is certainly watching.
The band is cleverly and fairly letting the market decide what their art/product is worth in direct dealings with consumers. This tactic may be just what the music industry needs to reconnect with fans in order to stop the deluge of easily accessible illegal downloads.
So what if you want a hard-copy version with all the fun artwork? The band has you covered here also, but they do set a price on the expanded physical version of the album (and quite a hefty one at that):
The band is also selling its music with an opposite approach--on its web site also offering a fancy, pricey, physical version of the album--42 pounds, about $80 dollars, for two vinyl records and two CDs with 18 songs on each, plus art and all those liner notes you used to get with old fashioned records and CDs. By this theory, the real Radiohead connoisseur will pay up for all the loot, and the rest of the fans will pay whatever they think the value is of the songs. If it works, people will like having control and will pay more--or something.
Although this unique idea may prompt other big name acts to follow in order to retain greater artistic freedom and control over their careers, smaller or upcoming acts will most likely not be able to follow suit since they need the resources of the industry to promote their music. Still, I look forward to seeing if this tactic succeeds and to hearing the new album. Will it work? Will it have any greater repercussion on the industry besides a ripple from the gimmick-effect?
Comments :
It will be interesting to see what happens
Will people pay a reasonable fee?
I'm one that does, more out of a sense of duty and what's right, than anything else. I'll pay the ITunes $0.99 fee to download, even if I know I can find what I want on Share360. My husband thinks I'm nuts for doing so.
Of course, after the first eighty songs, that fee begins to add up and one questions one's sense of duty ;}
"Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge" -- Kahlil Gibran
You would
be surprised at how common the practice is (downloading songs both legally and illegally), especially on college campuses. It is almost unheard of for students to purchase a physical version anymore.
Something interesting about Radiohead's situation is that you have to download the entire album instead of just a few songs (at least until next year when it is has a mass-distribution release).
I don't accept the idea
of intellectual property. Consequently I have no moral qualms about downloading music/books/etc.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
I do
but I've been guilty also. I try to stick to bootlegs and such. Try.
I also feel fewer moral qualms if the original author is dead already.
Anything posted on the web
Anything is subject to be used by others.
It is just a fact of life.
The only way music artists can avoid people stealing their songs from the internets, is to quit posting them on the internets.
You can take precautions, like having a user account, is the best solution. As in you can't down load the music unless you pay a certain montly fee to belong to a 'songs list'.
It is the economy, stupid.
Of course you work for a company
...which holds over 14,000 patents in the U.S. alone
.
Your standard of living is financed by the benefits that your employer derives from being able to protect its intellectual property, yet you deny the legitimacy of others' intellectual property, denying them that same chance at making a living based on intellectual property rights.
Hypocrisy, thy name is Tlaloc.
skymutt: wise and powerful... enlightened...
Half true
The company I work for certainly is a big proponent of IP laws. And no I don't agree with their stance on the matter.
However I'm not hypocritical for the very simple reason that while I deny others rights to IP I do also deny my employer's right too. See? Consistency.
For that matter I'm a freelance writer, and yet I don't agree with the idea of copyright and hence I have no intention of pursuing legal action against anyone who plagarized my work.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
half true, and the other half? Also true!
So, on the one hand, you "don't agree" with your employer regarding your employer's ability to enforce its own intellectual property rights, but are more than willing to live under the law as it exists today and accept that paycheck, funded with revenu derived from the enforcement of IP rights, until the day comes when the law is changed. On the other hand, you "don't agree" with IP rights to music, but do you accept the law as it exists today and get an iTunes account? No!
You accept the law that you disagree with when it benefits you, and scoff at the law when it works against you.
No. Don't see. Don't see the consistency at all. Consistently hypocritical, maybe.
Get an iTunes account or similar, dude. It really doesn't cost all that much to do the right thing.
**Full disclosure** I did the Napster thing back several years ago and admit to a record of hypocrisy on this issue myself. However I am reformed and am an iTunes subscriber today.
skymutt: wise and powerful... enlightened...
*shrug*
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
Tlaloc: "going along to get along" at the big corporation.
So what you're saying is that you're just a cog in the machine, and your particular cog does not directly involve the enforcement of IP rights. Well, that argument only flies so far. The fact is that it is precicely your ability and willingness to specialize in job X which allows your colleague to specialize in job Y, where job Y is a job which involves the enforcement of IP rights. Both you and your colleague are both paid from the same pool of money, which is garnered through your collective efforts. If it were not for the efforts of your colleague in job Y and other like him, you would likely be out of a job, and likewise, your colleague in job Y would be out of a job if you and others like you did not do your jobs.
By your logic, workers don't bear any responsibility for the actions of the corporations they work for unless they are actively involved in the specific action. Your company dumping toxic waste in the river? No problem, even if you knew about it, unless you personally opened the spigot. With such complacency the rule rather than the exception, it's litlle wonder that we see our corporations engaged so often in activities which we don't like. Just remember that the next time you criticize a corporation. Think about all the Tlalocs who worked for that corporation that just went along to get along.
skymutt: wise and powerful... enlightened...
again- *shrug*
I'm responsible for my actions and only my actions. By your logic anyone who contributes in anyway to the economy has also enabled the actions of every company and government on earth, simply because they took some share of a specialized task. I don't buy that. YMMV.
There is such a thing as perspective. As much as I disagree with the idea of IP law even I'm not going to compare it to actively poisoning a water supply.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
Can't we just call someone wrong?
I'm a big follower of IP because I'm a big proponent of R&D and the funding for the latter is based on protections from the former.
But while I think Tialoc is flat our wrong in his opinion on IP, I don't think he is being a hypocrite here. He isn't demanding anyone live by rules that he refuses to accept. Opportunist perhaps in that he is gaining advantage by those very rules that he thinks should be revoked, but I don't see the hypocracy.
Perhaps "conformism" is a better word for it than "hypocrisy"
So, henceforth, I will call this:
"conformism"
, or "going along to get along". To simply call a Tlaloc statement "wrong" usually does not adequately describe the depth and breadth of the wrongness ;-)
All in the spirit of debate of course. If Tlaloc ever expressed concentrated irritation at the harshness of my condemnations, I would ease up a bit, but he seems to take it in stride, and just fires back in kind.
skymutt: wise and powerful... enlightened...
I don't take it personally
and I want you to call me on something if you think I'm wrong. Who knows maybe you'll actually be right :)
Nah.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
OK Tialoc, you are wrong
If you want to let anyone copy the code that I write, scan the books that someone writes and post it on their web site, sell your secret recipe etc etc.
If you remove IP, what, other than production is a determining factor of business.
And of course, how do you explain Article I, Secition 8 of the US Constitution, where congress is given the power
How is this not the IP that you don't believe in?
I wasn't saying that IP is unconstitutional
I believe you that it is, what I'm saying is IP is simply a bad idea on several levels:
1) ideas are not property for the very simply reason that ideas are not limited and constrained so that the use by one person prevents the use by another.
2) the attempt to reduce ideas to property has a large number of bad side effects. It turns art and science into commodities with the inevitable cheapening of both.
3) the idea of ownership of an idea is frankly idiotic. When you write code for instance all you are doing is drawing upon a hugely developed set of ideas and making a small change to it. You aren't creating anything really new which is obvious from the fact that you are using a language already invented and widely disseminated.
Similarly when I write I'm taking ideas that have been floating around through human consciousness for millennia and maybe giving them a slight twist. These things AREN'T new. Consequently how can I say I own it?
Why should there be anything else?
Here's what I'd suggest- scrap IP laws. Artists work by selling the thing they actually produce which can then be replicated by business. Brand identity is maintained through anti-fraud law.
Scientists and artists can go back to being people engaged in science and art, rather than business.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
Tialoc, What about rule of law then?
Since we agree that Intellectual Property is constitutional (and in fact, is encouraged in the constitution), and certainly it is the law, should you not respect the law and follow it barring any massive moral problem?
In this case, it seems to be convenience and not a moral issue.
Now, if you want to argue the law should be changed or that you should be able to ignore it? If the former, fine; you'll never succeed, but we can debate that .
But if the latter, what makes this law OK to ignore (unlike, say, government employees evesdropping on private citizens?)
Oh, and as an engineer/scientist, why should I not be able to make a business out of such creation?
dude, check the bar color :)
Well I am an anarchist.
I try to follow my conscience. Where it and the law deviate I don't usually sweat it too much.
I do think the law should be changed. I made a suggestion earlier to that effect. But at the same time I do think people should behave according to their personal moral codes, regardless of what some big brother thinks.
Because science it isn't a business, and treating it as one destroys it. Science requires the free exchange of information which is incompatible with treating information as a commodity.
Now engineering is a different matter, you certainly can make a business of that, but that doesn't require IP law. You can contract for your time, you can contract to accomplish a certain job and so forth.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
Heh. :)
Isn't this the type of thing you and/or liberals claim about the Republicans?
Republican Maverick at Large
-4:Strongly Disagree; 0:Meh; +4:Strongly Agree
The difference being
that Republicans are usually trying to enforce those laws/moral judgments on others. :-)
How much
would you pay voluntarily for some of your favorite tunes? Say, for example Rush?
(Anyone can chime in here.)
Whatever it cost
I pay the standard ITunes fees for songs or albums, which are about a dollar a song or ten bucks for the album.
I pay more for CDs. I don't mind paying. It's how the economy works ;} hehe. I prefer having the CDs, actually.
The newest Rush CD was, what, twenty bucks more or less including taxes. And If I want to see a concert, I pay the outrageous prices. With a smile on my face. That's why I work! What is life without music?
But we're music junkies. We want it, we buy it. If that means we do without something else, then we do. For example, we have a barebones cellphone plan because music (and other stuff) rate higher than yakking on the phone. We live in an older home in a not so trendy area so we can have funds to play with. Our vehicles are old but paid for. It's all about choices. YMMV.
"Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge" -- Kahlil Gibran
I root for the artists
Hooray for them.
somewhat off topic:
One of THE funnest hearings before Congress was rappers, being asked by very serious members of Congress what they (the artists) can do to imrpove their community by raising some of the standards of the lyrics of their songs.
The response from the artists was thought provoking.
They asked is it our job to not report what we see on the streets.
Take a short walk down the street from capital hilll and tell me what you see and hear. We just paint the pictures with our music and lyrics.
You ask where are the parents. Well isn't Congress considered the parents of the US. Why are economic conditions so difficult for these people on the streets.
Does life imitate art, or does art imitate life.
It is the economy, stupid.
How much do the artists net on each cd?
There is your answer. If you cut out the middle men - all the artists need to charge is something like a buck per downloadable cd.
Sic semper tyrannis
In related news
story.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
I thought
there were more prosecutions.
How do the record companies discover this information anyhow? Does anyone know how they track this type of thing?
I believe it works like this
They log into a share client and look for people with downloadable songs. They record the IP address of the person doing the sharing and then go to the ISP and get them to translate the IP address into an actual identity.
This is where their attaempts at legal recourse hit a bit of a snag- in most homes with internet access you have one ISP but multiple people, so establishing who exactly was sharing files is difficult.
There's something like 30,000 cases filed but this is apparently the first to actually get into court. My guess is a lot have settled out of court and others are waiting in turn on the civil court docket.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
It'll be appealed
I've been following the case, especially so over at slashdot. I'll save myself the typing and just link to the story there
. In short, jury instruction 15 gives Ms. Thomas a very large hole through which she can be relieved of the charges.
(I'm stinerman there as well)
I never broke the law; I am the law! --
George W. BushJudge DreddI'm listening to...
Can you explain the 'hole'
I didn't have time to search through the multiple pages on the subject, and I didn't see it on any of the initial pages or links.
Wow, a jury found her guilty and now she owes $222,000 for 24 songs. That's scary.
I better watch those late night rash decisions after a few drinks. Either that or make my wireless network unsecured so I can claim anyone stole it. My neighbor has my password to use my wireless. I wonder if that could be a way out, or perhaps a quicker way to get me busted as I have no idea about his downloading habits.
Does anybody know the legality of downloading bootlegs (stuff not for commercial sale), out of print material, or items you already own (previously purchased)?
I'm just wondering about some of the technicalities of these issues.
The Hole
I fancy myself a bit of an expert on copyright (at least moreso than the average bear) so I'll try to answer your questions the best I can.
Jury instruction 15 says that making the work available violates a statutory right and is therefore copyright infringement. That means that simply offering to make a copy is copyright infringement according to the judge. This interpretation is by no means universal. In fact other judges have ruled that actual infringement must have taken place (uploading and/or downloading) for there to have been an infringement. So if you use some P2P program and have works in your shared folder, then you've committed copyright infringement, regardless of whether or not you actually uploaded any files to anyone.
If your neighbor has access to your router, that is probably enough to throw suspicion off of you. All these cases do is make the illogical connection that a unique IP implies a unique person.
As per a copyright laywer I know via slashdot, I believe all of those cases are indeed copyright infringement. Your ability to assert a fair use defense increases in each case. Downloading works you already own would seem to be a fair use, but by no means is it cut and dry. I'm almost positive that you'd have a really hard time asserting a fair use defense in the first two scenarios, though. Fair use is determined case by case, rather than on an overall rule. The real problem here is that even if you did mount a successful defense, you'd likely be bankrupted based on the legal fees alone. That is the motivation behind the RIAA's extortion. They'll settle for you for less that it'll cost to defend yourself from their accusations.
Of course, I'm not a lawyer, and this isn't legal advice. Contact your local counsel if you have any doubts about the legality of anything you're doing.
I never broke the law; I am the law! --
George W. BushJudge DreddI'm listening to...
Thanks for the info.
I think I will be more discretionary about my habits, but that is a bummer about the bootlegs, because that's been my emphasis lately.