Latest Bogus Stats On Music Piracy Losses
from the do-we-really-need-to-go-through-this-again? dept
It's getting rather tiresome to need to debunk the bogus stats that come out every few months about the impact of "piracy" on one of the various copyright industries -- alternating between music, movies and software. What's most frustrating is that the press continues to take these studies at face value, and never once questions the most basic (and ridiculous) assumptions used to create the numbers. Take, for example, this report on the supposed impact on the economy of music piracy, put together by The Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI). It, like many of these reports,
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Filed Under: bogus stats, copyright, music, piracy
Companies: institute for policy innovation
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Music stars hurting
It appears most rappers and rockers are nearly in poverty.
Yes, piracy is killing the musicians.
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Re: Music stars hurting
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Re: Music stars hurting
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Re: Music stars hurting
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Stop debunking, then.
Then stop. Everyone who will actually read this already knows these "studies" are severely biased. The people who actually need to be told this will never read this site. You may as well give up.
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Lets not forget either that music piracy is nothing new. Bootleg copies were fairly abundant for cheap. The only difference is it is easier than ever to distribute, and it is going to the massess.
Actually from what I gather (from the 1992 law signed by GW Bush, part of which protects your right to being able to make copies and stuff for non commercial use and give them away to friends. The only reason downloading music is a copyright violation is because of the indiscriminate nature of sites that host the stuff.
So in short, download from a specific source and make sure you have pictures of yourself taken with the source on vacation or something. Then when you get sued you can say 'hey we're buddies, he just gave me a copy' and you should be fine.
Note im not a law expert so i could be comletely wrong.
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Re:
That goes in two directions. One that you can give digital copies to 5000 more easily and in better quality than you could make copies for 5 friends in 1992.
The second is that it once again puts recorded music back into the promotional aspect of things, in that it's a value-add product and not a value in and of itself. Artists must again focus on the live show and use recordings as a promotional tool. And it's a very, very effective promotional tool. And being in marketing I can tell you the music industry has nothing better at it's disposal than this for promoting it's artists. There's a very fundamental change in business model that needs to happen. Not everyone in the industry will survive this. Tough. That's capitalism. Don't like it? Then go screw yourself. Don't artificially hold up the market with bogus federal laws and regulations simply because your business model doesn't stand up to changing technologies. Use those technologies to your advantage and you can solidify your position in the new market, but don't hold back the world because you're too afraid.
But using logic like the parent's just makes RIAA execs want to piss on the new business model even more.
I very much hate the recording industry in almost all aspects but claiming that a law written in 1992 to protect me when I make a few (lossy!) copies of my music for friends protects me from making 5000 lossless copies for my "friends" is just as much a logical fallacy as most of what the RIAA pukes out.
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You got it wrong pal
You're totally, completely wrong.
I am the publisher of the study. We did NOT "count(s) every pirated song as a loss."
Why don't you read and understand something before you describe and characterize it?
It's amusing to me to see how many of your ilk are trashing something that they have either not bothered to read, or didn't understand. Turns out there is a difference between serious journalists and bloggers after all . . .
Given your carelessness in reporting on this study, I guess it's YOU that we should stop taking seriously.
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Re: You got it wrong pal
I was bored (very bored) so I sat down and read the report (big yawn) and found it as full of BS as I was expecting after reading Mike's reporting.
So please, explain how he was wrong before you start bashing him.
Go ahead, amuse us.
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Re: Re: You got it wrong pal
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Re: You got it wrong pal
if they were to reduce the price to something reasonable like $8-$10, i might be persuaded to have some sympathy for whoever you're precious study says is getting hurt...
BTW pal, there's no such thing as a "serious journalist" anymore...it's all about the $ these days...
i see The Institute for Policy Innovation's motto is:
"Advocating lower taxes,
fewer regulations,
and a smaller, less-
intrusive government."
seems a bit hypocritical to me...wouldn't surprise me one bit if you got some funding from RIAA / MPAA either...
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Re: Re: You got it wrong pal
Tom, explain how 100+ year copyright fits with fewer regulations and less-intrusive government? 14 years seems to be the optimal number when it comes to economic efficiency. So surely being a supporter of the free market, you would support a reduction in the length of copyright? Or are you a hypocrite?
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Re: You got it wrong pal
Now exactly how much money was lost due to this? Was it $2,769.03 for 99c I-Tunes tracks, or perhaps $6,461.07 based off the $2.31 you apparently use in your study? Do you really think I would have paid that much for any music, let alone music I knew practically nothing about and still haven't listened to much of (a couple of hundred listened to would be generous)? Please not that I have only ever bought 2 cd's in my life for myself and I'd already downloaded all the music on them. Even with these I found out about them when a friend copied some mp3's by that artist for me (without me asking for them) when he copied some other stuff for me.
Please do tell me why I shouldn't just dismiss your study out of hand. Seriously.
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Re: You got it wrong pal
You make it sound that $12.5 billion has disappeared from the US economy because of piracy. I didn't know that piracy was a negative sum game. Who is being careless?
If I'm not spending my money on music, I'm spending my money on something else, so there is no cost in economic output and jobs. Perhaps, by spending my money on something else, I'm actually helping the economy because the spin-off affects are greater.
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Re: You got it wrong pal
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Re: Re: You got it wrong pal
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Re: You got it wrong pal
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Re: You got it wrong pal
And how much does the RIAA/MPAA pay for publishing propaganda?
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Re: You got it wrong pal
You try to go to the site and comment and will simply get a 1word response from a redirect stating "refused". So you can't even verify his "legitimate-ness" of his study, since you can't even ask the moron where his magic numbers came from.
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Re: You got it wrong pal
I really disagree with paying a buck a song online -- if music were cheaper I'd actually pay for it.
Last time I bought a CD it cost me $20 for a crummy CD with one song on it that I actually like and 11 other crummy songs.
Maybe it's the music industries crummy business model that's causing them to lose money? Instead of trying to fight the way things are shifting and clinging to the old way things were 15 years ago, they should be looking for new ways to integrate in a way that consumers would appreciate.
And when they start going after the things that I really like with lawsuits and legislation (napster, pandora, etc) that just makes me view it more as "us vs them".
Kind of like Comedy Centrals parent company's lawsuits against youtube (google). I'm not really sure what their motive is. Do they really think if they rid youtube of all the southpark clips i'm going to start visiting comedycentral.com to watch them their? Same goes for the other companies. I'm never going to visit ABC.com to watch a 30 sec clip of their show that has a 30 second commercial before it. It's like they're forgetting that they're on the internet and trying to pretend its still 1974 and that there are only 3 channels.
In closing, I think companies are trying to operate the way they did 20-30 years ago and they're trying to fight the current system instead of trying to roll with it and find creative ways to make money. Instead of viewing it as a threat they should be looking for opportunity. The ones that do (think youtube) will be burying the competition. No one cares about comedycentral.com, or a music label like geffen.com, but they feel passionately about their myspace (eww) or youtube.
I could go on for another hour but I'm sure no one will really read this.
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Re: Re: You got it wrong pal
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Re: You got it wrong pal
I corrected that part of the story.
Will you correct the bogus parts of your study, such as the ripple effect and the randomly chosen multiplier for what counts as a lost sale?
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Re: You got it wrong pal
That you guys turned around and ADMIT that you're using the same flawed assumptions, should make you ashamed.
Seriously. Ripple effects?
Given your carelessness in reporting on this study, I guess it's YOU that we should stop taking seriously.
Again, I corrected my mistake. You used your mistakes a second time to make a second bogus report and then stood by it.
Who looks worse?
Turns out there is a difference between serious journalists and bloggers after all . . .
Yeah, the journalists who take your bogus, easily disproved numbers as facts... they sure are serious, aren't they?
As others have pointed out, you didn't defend the methodology of this study at all. You simply stopped by to insult me. Would love for a real defense of the study, because from what I can see, it's indefensible that you would use such a methodology -- especially after many people have pointed out how foolish it is.
For a group that claims to be against big gov't and for fewer regulations, it's amazing that you're such huge supporters of gov't monopolies and subsidies like this.
Again, it would be great if you wanted to actually defend this study, but that hasn't happened yet, I see.
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Re: You got it wrong pal
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More stuff
I also think that you, Tom, with your experience in marketing, should know better than to not have the author mention anything about increased promotional use of recorded music. G-man noted in his comment that the rappers are making money. Not from selling their recordings well, because I'm sure research would point out that rap artists' (no one will ever catch me calling rap, music, or calling a rapper an artist EVER again) music is among the most commonly downloaded, but because they sell other things with their image.
If you're going to publish a study on lost revenue, you have to tell the whole story.
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Re:
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Tom you look like a genius, keep up the extremely falsified work, it's what gets me through the day laughing and what confirms that dumb people will always be around. I hope you keep your job as publisher so we get more of those hilarious studies!
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Artists make dosh off merch and shows
Music downloads only hurts the record companies and eventually artists will be able to do away with them and distribute online entirely. Bring on those days.
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Re: Artists make dosh off merch and shows
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Re: Re: Artists make dosh off merch and shows
I've worked for a number of very large companies that struggle to compete dispite having once had a monopoly in their area. The reason they fail is not because they are unwilling to change, they simply do not know how. I feel this is the same with the record labels, they just don't knw how to adapt.
But that's good because eventually it will mean they will die out and hopefully everything will be a little better run.
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Job Creation
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Serious Discrepancy
"Take, for example, this report on the supposed impact on the economy of music piracy, put together by The Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI). It, like many of these reports, counts every pirated song as a loss, and never bothers to count back in the promotional impact of unauthorized music sharing, that helps get more attention for certain bands."
I have read on other sites that this study used a multiplier- I can't find what I originally read but it seems that it was around 60%. I could be wrong on this but the study is what it is and if it proves out that a multiplier was used than Mike should publicly revoke his above statement.
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Free to download, free to keep, free to pass on for personal use. I'm sure they could find other ways to make revenue off of their.
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Where's the research?
It's been proven time and again that *anyone* can skew statistics to back up their claim. Why can't the media call the organizations on this? If piracy really costs the economy billions of dollars, let's see more proof by *impartial* organizations, rather than people like the RIAA, MPAA, etc.
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Time to Embrace the Revolution
When records companies say artists loose they mean 'Their' company. The artist individual or group get tiny % from sale of CD most goes to retailer, tax (if any), Record Company, Some rights group that takes flipping years to get your royalties from, the artist manager then to the artist. If you made $0.50 you'll be raking it in :-) from each sold.
They the old record comapnies are bloated oversize corporate egos who not only are late to game with crappy drm filled spyware cd's that only run on windows blah blah balh or the trendy coloured (brown) Zune portable media player rent music you never own or cant take anywhere else, that as most important people who actually buy music (yes there a few still) Loose out Big Time.
If your an artist who could make $1 from every song that some buys just via paypal or google checkout and have it go streight to your bank account (gasp), can play to a large amount of people world wide through shoutcast, or play and promote yourtself in secondlife and other virtual crappy worlds and reach more fans and following all from the comfort of your living room, selling merchandise via cafe press.
You the artist save a boat load of money, shave costs and able to promote and keep more money for yourself using low costs methods. Oh but what or who lost out, erm let me think .... oh yeah the record labels who want to squeeze every single $ out of your ass, stick u up on Mtv etc donkey show and then pull you when your album doesnt do too well in the charts cause no one buys CD's now and you end up touring some remote far away backroads for years and years hoping to make it and playing to 1 man and his dog.
(end of rant -> PS Am cranky, been up 23 hours and counting, so expect odd rambling and typo in above but i was angry lmao when i first wrote then)
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Re: Time to Embrace the Revolution
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Must be tough to wake up one day and find yourself obsolete and have to justify your existence to people who are forgetting what you even did.
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How does it feel to be a paid shill?
Thanks for being part of the problem.
-Lu
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Thats the way they work
So basically you are talking two different languages ;-)
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interesting.....
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music quality
I could go on and on about music quality , but from the comments I've read here most will settle for the crap they can get CHEAP.
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Re: music quality
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Digging a Deeper Hole
"You simply stopped by to insult me."
Mike, Tom's post #6 corrected your factual and central error and then he proceeded to insult you- in that order. So your above statement is incorrect. When you make incorrect statements it weakens your arguments.
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the musicians lively IS being murdered!!
I make enough to pay the rent , by a car every 10 or 12 years and buy a new instrument every few years.
I will say with out reservation, I have never seen more hatred toward
artists and creatives, than in the last 3 of 4 years.
I am not talking about stars and corporations.
I am talking about average working stiffs - engineers producers big and small
studios , pro gear manufacturers , big and small publishers Techs sales people.
And indy musicians and labels.
I am saying it is worse than this report that you guys are complaining about.
I am talking from from my experience only granted , but i am a mid line and indy musician and have worked on 200+ records in my 30 years.
I AM TELLING YOU THT ILLEGAL DOWNLOADING IS KILLING US
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Re: the musicians lively IS being murdered!!
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RE: the musicians lively IS being murdered!
Last month I purchased 14 CDs online (Amazon and band web sites), all regional indie bands. I discovered each of those bands on the web and by downloading music. If a band intrigues me, I download a few songs (if I can find them), and if I like them, I buy their music, go to their shows, lobby them to play in my area, and look for new albums when they come out so I can buy more.
I didn't realize that kind of support was causing musicians to lose money.
I guess I will stop my "anti-artist" behavior. Please accept my apologies.
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What do you expect?
Of COURSE it is exaggerated.
You have done more to promote their point of view by drawing attention to it than you have done to discredit it by pointing out the obvious exaggerations.
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An earnest high-schooler came up to me today at church because he knows a little about my views about music downloading. He asked me to speak to the high school praise team leader, a college kid with aspirations of being a Christian rock star. Apparently, the praise team leader/dictator has instituted a rule saying that any person who "illegally downloads" MP3s is barred from joining the praise team. Considering himself an artist, Mr. Praise Team Leader had tears in his eyes as he waxed eloquently on the topic of how wrong it is to steal from the mouths of hard-working artists (oblivious of the fact that artists get very little of the money from CD sales). His argument is practically a word-for-word recitation of the industry's propaganda, and it enrages me to think that he's imposing this as part of religion on children.
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Real Math...Uh
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Yarr Harr Fiddle De Dee....
The reason I like this little piece of propaganda is the mental image I get... Osama Bin Laden sitting in a cave somewhere saying "9-11 went well, everyone's worried, sure 100,000 Iraqis have died because of it, but I have a master plan! We will go out and buy CD's, films and software, then let people download them for FREE!! Take THAT western world!!"
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Improvise, adapt, overcome ... or go extinct.
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And Mike, you claim that the report ignores the positive "ripple effects" but don't you do that when you talk about the costs associated with SOX regulations? There are benefits to SOX but you ignore them.
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Re:
First off, I'm not ignoring the benefits to SOX. I just have pointed out that the costs seem to outweigh those benefits. And, when we talk about SOX, we're not talking about the ripple effects -- we're talking about direct costs and benefits.
If you want to get into the ripple effects, you'll start to tread dangerously close to a broken window fallacy -- which is exactly what happens in this IPI report.
However, you're missing the point. You don't have to explain all the ripple effects... but if you're going to show the ripples in one direction, to completely ignore them in the other direction is intellectually dishonest.
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Re: Re:
You are writing a lot of articles, what, everyone else out there on vacation?
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As long as the information can be controlled - whether through controlling education - allowing only certain privileged people to read write, controlling the press, controlling publication and distribution - as long as information is controlled and limited, society in general suffers.
When controls have been overcome - through technological advances, through education, through "enlightenment" - society as a whole has advanced.
Doesn't it stand to reason that technology has advanced so that information is flowing more freely and that the artifical controls of the industrial revolution have served their purpose and now need to give way to an age of "even more enlightenment" in which information - whether audible or legible can flow more freely for the good of society?
I am not advocating not rewarding the producers of information - the authors, artists, and musicians.
I am advocating not holding on to the past for the sake of the profits of the industrial age INFORMATION MONOPOLIES who aren't needed any more.
In the end, I believe it will be economics which finally kills the record stuidos. When a musician can go and do their own recording, post the songs on their site, and allow me to listen to a low resolution song for free, and download the high resolution version for $.50 DIRECTLY TO THEM I will - why go spend $15 for a CD to get 1 song, $14 of which (or more) doesn't go to the artist?!?! Or how about an author who will sell me a .pdf of their book for $1 instead of $15 for a paperback?
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This can happen today. Why do you think it isn't more widespread?
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A: Because they're locked into recording contracts prohibiting it.
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Re:
25 years ago when the CD was introduced, they always said the CD would be cheaper in the long run when the CD becomes more popular then albums or cassettes. Now that everyone owns CDs I still haven't seen a new CD cheaper than $12. I personally wouldn't buy a new CD anyways, I go to the used places since you can go there and get a CD for $2-$4 but first I will still download the album first to see if its even worth $2 since most music today you couldn't even give it away to me.
That is another area where the record labels killed the music industry. Distributing full albums with maybe one good single. When was the last time you heard a song on traditional radio bought the CD & said WOW! Every song on this album is great" not since the ninties IMO!
Don't get me wrong there is good music out there but you won't any of it on shitty traditional radio!! You know where I have found the good bands ON THE INTERNET & Sat Radio where good music survives
MUSIC WILL ALWAYS BE HERE!!!! FUCK THE LABELS & FUCK THE RIAA. Real musicians now have a place to distribute & advertise without bullshit deals & paying bullshit fees!! Maybe they will go back to the old days & not tour as much & make at least an album a year.
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Re: Re: Good Ideas todd
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Re:Yarr Harr Fiddle De Dee....
"The reason" ... "is the mental image I get... Osama Bin Laden sitting in a cave somewhere saying "9-11 went well, everyone's worried, sure 100,000 Iraqis have died because of it, but I have a master plan! We will go out and buy CD's, films and software, then let people download them for FREE!! Take THAT western world!!"
I believe that the "Piracy" that they are refering to with that statement is bootleg DVDs. They (terrorist or their supporters) combind 3 or 4 movies onto one DVD, then sell the copies for the price of one. I've been to the middle east and seen the shops selling these.
$60 for 3 movies (if they buy them in the first place), $30 for 100 DVD+R, hell why not throw in $10 for packaging. It cost them 100 bucks and if sold for $20 makes them $2000.
$1900 buys a hell of a lot of bullets
I'm not saying that all the piracy claims are valid, I have downloaded plenty of music and movies to see if they were worth buying and I do still buy CDs and DVDs I like, but your mental image is a little out of focus.
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The logic of the piracy=terrorism argument is puzzling. (and that's probably why it's intentionally left vague) It reminds me of the "people are starving in Somalia" argument that mothers used to tell their children to get them to finish their dinner. Eating all my dinner doesn't give starving children in Somalia any more food, and my downloading movies, or even buying ripped DVDs on the streets of New York, doesn't give "terrorists" in Afghanistan any more or less money to buy bullets.
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Solution to Piracy for all
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Re: Solution to Piracy for all
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lawls?
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