Pirate versus Paying

what it is...




*

the Presumption of Guilt

if you have ever rented a video from an authorized outlet in your neighbourhood

or purchased one of your favourite movies,
so you can watch it again and again...

...you know these messages very well.

They're the MPAAs way of saying "Thanks".

i can't think of any other industry,
or any other product i've ever bought
that opens with the assumption
that i'm probably a scumbag.

...and every time i want to watch a movie,
there it is again.



"we think you suck"

how many times?
every time.

http://www.brendamake.com/numbers/extra.warning.html

i've never had a book tell me that...


yet.

 

where did these people ever get the idea
that calling your customers down
was going to help?

if you follow this link,
you'll find a collection of short, sharp films
expressing a variety of opinions
on this...

What Grinds My Gears

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Who are the Real Pirates?

Chet Baker was a leading jazz musician in the 1950s, playing trumpet and providing vocals. Baker died in 1988, yet he is about to add a new claim to fame as the lead plaintiff in possibly the largest copyright infringement case in Canadian history. His estate, which still owns the copyright in more than 50 of his works, is part of a massive class-action lawsuit that has been underway for the past year.

The infringer has effectively already admitted owing at least $50 million and the full claim could exceed $6 billion. If the dollars don't shock, the target of the lawsuit undoubtedly will: The defendants in the case are Warner Music Canada, Sony BMG Music Canada, EMI Music Canada, and Universal Music Canada, the four primary members of the Canadian Recording Industry Association.


to learn more about how much the CRIA loves artists...

http://www.thestar.com/business/article/735096--geist-record-industry-faces-liability-over-infringement

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Download This...

ohmigod!



It seems, vis-a-vis the Death of Music,
there are more lions, tigers and yes, even more bears out there than ever.

It's all laid out a website called stopmusictheft.com, and the news is not good. In fact, it's bad. It's bad with a capital B,
and that rhymes
with P
and that stands
for
Piracy!

Arrrr!

But wait! It gets worse!


Apparently, without swift and sweeping action on a global scale - including legislation, prosecution, re-education and behaviour modification - the Future of Music Itself is in danger.

Seriously. Here's what it says at "Stop Music Theft dot com"...



"Apple's "biggest" iPod holds 40,000 songs. Assuming one bought them all, that's about $40,000. Teenagers (and many who once were)
all over the world are walking around with the equivalent of a stolen Lexus in their pockets (because really, who has $40 grand to spend on music?). Do you think that's right? Do you think we should ignore that? Do you think we should blame car dealers if they or their trade association tried to stop that?"

a Lexus?

in their pocket?
















really?























(deep, heartfelt sigh)

Welcome to The Box. There is so much wrong here that even trying to think about it brings on the intellectual equivalent of an ice cream headache.


The philosophical assumptions behind all this sound and fury have never been - and are not now - shared by a majority of listeners or musicians on the planet. The "business plan" implied here was crude a hundred years ago and now it's more  than 20 years past the stale-date... just over one digital generation.
The message comes wrapped in a cheap, moronic metaphor and dripping with condescension... but there is more to this Lexus moment than a level of loathing for the customer that even airlines can't touch.

 
This little fable says a lot
about why The Industry
formerly known as Music
has been so wrong, so often
about so much
for so long. 





The sense of entitlement and level of self-absorption in these few lines are not just infantile. They are literally sociopathic*.

- tbc -

*sociopath, from Wikipedia:


"...defined by the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual as "...a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood."<sup>[1]




the idea of corporations as sociopathic is brilliantly articulated in The Corporation. It's a documentary film, a book, a dialogue and a website. To learn more about this diagnosis, go here:</sup>

^{http://www.thecorporation.com/index.cfm}

^{or you can download the film here:}

^{http://www.archive.org/details/The_Corporation_}

<sup>don't forget the bonus video - associate producer Joel Bakan interviewed by Janeane Garofalo


and/or download the soundtrack here:</sup>

^{http://www.archive.org/details/kpu101}

^{if you do, remember to say thanks!}

^.

Say Amen, Somebody!

Hallelujah!

Here's some all-too-rare, plain-spoken sense-making about music, money and so much more...


"The fact is that the music industry’s revenues have been artificially inflated for decades because of limited consumer options. The last 15 years of innovation have lifted those limitations, effectively leaving the music industry with an obsolete, defective business model of monopolized production technology, forced album bundling, and almost nonexistent competition in the realm of home entertainment. What is happening now – the decline of music profits and the piracy witch hunt by the music industry – is merely the panicked struggle of a dying business model, a complacent industry’s refusal to accept its diminishing role in a digital world. The pirates are not the reason, and the decline is the not the disease. It is the cure."


read more from the Jens Roland article on "How to Kill the Music Industry" at

http://torrentfreak.com/how-to-kill-the-music-industry-090227/

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Bad Canada... no biscuit!

In its release, it chose to target two countries – Canada and Spain – for declining sales and linked those declines to copyright law.

As it no doubt intended, the IFPI release succeeded in generating media coverage, including two Globe and Mail stories (here and here) that dutifully reported that Canada was perceived a piracy haven and was being criticized (again) by the global recording industry.

Yet it doesn’t take much digging to see that the IFPI targeted the wrong country. Canadian sales declined by 7.4 percent last year.  That is obviously bad news for the industry, but it is almost identical to the global average of 7.2 percent.

In other words, far from a piracy outlier, Canada was actually consistent with declines around the world.  Moreover, while the IFPI chose to target Canada, the reality is the declines were far bigger in the United States (10.7 percent) and Japan (10.8 percent) yet neither country is described as a piracy haven. The IFPI data also shows that Canada was ahead of the curve on digital music sales growth.

Canadian digital sales grew by 38 percent last year, while globally the number was 9.2 percent (the U.S. grew at 8 percent, below the global average).

read the rest here

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Money and Pirates and Music

oh my!

here's an interesting chart from
the United Kingdom, that puts the
raving of the Music Industry about
piracy and downloading and crime
and all that into another frame...

... it reads to me like the total amount
being spent on 'digital entertainment'
from 1999 to 2008 has nearly doubled
over 10 years - which is more than can
be said for people's wages.

... it also looks like games have been
where much of that increase in spending
has happened - which in my experience
is a zone where the primary consumers
are young people, who formerly were
the big buyers in terms on music.

...something to consider,
and the beat goes on....

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I Don't Get This Either....

Why is it that the maximum fine
for stealing an entire CD
from a record store
is $1,000,
but downloading one song
from the internet
can lead to a fine
of $10,000?



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The daily irrelevant » Intellectual Property

plus ca change....






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