"Your solution for ridding the world of scalpers is basically to remove a secondary market by pricing the item at a price that will still sell out, but which only a select group can afford."
Yep, the exact same is true of cars made by BMW and Lexus, watches made of real gold, and diamond encrusted iPods. When there is a high demand for something exclusive, prices rise and some people are left unable to buy. That's life. Get used to it.
"This limits an artists outreach severely."
If the artist feels so bad about the high cost of his or her ticket prices, he could decrease demand by increasing the supply. I.e., tour more often. Heck, tour all the fricken time. Eventually people would get so sick of seeing him he'd be unable to even give away his tickets for free.
"Why should I pay you twice the face value of a ticket just because you want to make a buck?"
Um, because you live in a capitalist society?
And the only reason the "face value" of the ticket is so low is because it is artificially low. It is intentionally set below market value. And that's exactly why scalping exists. They buy low and sell high. If the tickets were set at the high market price, scalpers would be out of business.
"Sounds to me like you're pushing an elitist society..."
If having an understanding of basic economic principles is somehow "elitist", I guess I am. But to me confusing an understanding of such principles with elitism makes you an idiot.
"I've got the money, so it sucks to be you"
I certainly could not afford the true market value of a concert ticket for a major touring act.
"I recognize that there's an issue of scalpers buying up huge blocks of tickets..."
What issue could there be with buying low and selling high? Is that illegal now?
If the artists and venues set ticket prices which accurately reflected demand, scalpers would and could no longer exist.
And please don't whine about high ticket prices. There are plenty of things in life we cannot afford. There is no right to cheap prices on the things we want. If you can't afford something, earn more money or live without it.
"too many musicians... seem too focused on the marketing side, rather than promoting the music"
Did you mean "producing the music" or "promoting the music"? "Promoting the music" doesn't make much sense in context with the rest of the sentence. Promoting music is not much different from marketing music.
However "producing" music sets up a contrast between the creation of music and the marketing of music.
Oh yeah, merely because I use a single game metaphor, the entire legal profession is now a sporting event.
What I described was lawyers making the trial less ambiguous and making the entire system more efficient.
Appellate attorneys love ambiguity. They love being able to pick at small errors which may have occurred at the trial court. Appellate attorneys would much rather have an ambiguous record so they can poke holes in it later. "Did the jury really know they were not supposed to search the net about the case, we don't know." Such ambiguities increase the costs of litigation and keeps judgments and verdicts from being finalized.
I cannot understand why you think making a clear and unambiguous record is somehow a bad thing. Wait, are you an appellate attorney?
I'm of the opinion that videos and photographs of people, events, objects that are not themselves copyrightable, cannot be copyrightable.
It just seems ludicrous that I can videotape someone else doing same random act and then claim a copyright on it. How does me videotaping my neighbor mowing his law "promotes the Progress of Science and useful Arts"?!
I don't think you guys understand how courts and appellate processes work. The purpose of the signed promise is not to really stop people from searching on the net. It's to set up presumption based upon the signed promise.
Here's how it works. The judge doesn't give a rat's ass whether the jury searches the net on the criminal trial he's presiding over. But he does not want the defendant to file an appeal later saying that he (the defendant) did not receive a fair trial because the jury was searching on the net.
The appellate court would look at the signed promises with the presumption that no such searching took place. To overcome that presumption the defendant would have to come up with hard evidence that members of the jury violated the promise, that they were prejudiced by what they found, and that the outcome of the trial would have been different if it had not occurred.
In other words, any conviction of the defendant is less likely to be overturned on appeal with these written promises.
Where you guys see pointless and wasteful procedure. Lawyers see a check-mate.
I hate to get petty, but can you name any law which actually prevented the activity made illegal? Murder has been illegal for a long time, yet, it happens nearly everyday in my rust-belt city. Not to mention speeding, stopping at red lights, rape, etc...
The simple fact is that out of the top 200 tours, the vast majority of performers do very few covers. And if a major act does perform a cover, it's usually a song by another major act.
Most musicians who cover music do so in smaller places such as bars or night clubs.
I know from experience from the 80s and 90s that when we played in bars we'd have to turn over our set list to the bar so it could turn it over to ASCAP/BMI. The thought was that the song writers of the songs we were covering were getting paid for our performances. But, apparently, that's not true. Apparently, ASCAP/BMI collects such money, but never dishes it back out.
So sure, if Brittany Spears does a Rolling Stones cover on her tour, the Rolling Stones will get a cut. But if my band does a Husker Du cover at a local bar, Husker Du does not receive a dime, even though ASCAP/BMI does collect money for our performance.
Once again, a lot of money goes in, but only a little goes out. And when it goes out, it goes almost exclusively to major artists.
All venues pay into ASCAP/BMI for the live acts they have. ASCAP/BMI both collect all of that money for all such live performances at the venues. However, ASCAP/BMI only pay out for the top two hundred bands.
So out of thousands upon thousands of live performances the ASCAP/BMI collects upon each year, they are only paying out on a tiny portion of them.
Oh Mike, back in 2003 you wrote that VoIP services should not be treated like traditional phone services and you wrote that any regulatory agency who thought otherwise was "confused."
Now apparently you do want regulation on VoIP. You want the feds to treat VoIP services as good old fashion common carriers, like land lines.
On the post: Ticketmaster Trying To Cut Down On Scalpers... Or Increase Fee Collection For Itself?
Re: Re:
Yep, the exact same is true of cars made by BMW and Lexus, watches made of real gold, and diamond encrusted iPods. When there is a high demand for something exclusive, prices rise and some people are left unable to buy. That's life. Get used to it.
"This limits an artists outreach severely."
If the artist feels so bad about the high cost of his or her ticket prices, he could decrease demand by increasing the supply. I.e., tour more often. Heck, tour all the fricken time. Eventually people would get so sick of seeing him he'd be unable to even give away his tickets for free.
On the post: Ticketmaster Trying To Cut Down On Scalpers... Or Increase Fee Collection For Itself?
Re: Re:
Um, because you live in a capitalist society?
And the only reason the "face value" of the ticket is so low is because it is artificially low. It is intentionally set below market value. And that's exactly why scalping exists. They buy low and sell high. If the tickets were set at the high market price, scalpers would be out of business.
"Sounds to me like you're pushing an elitist society..."
If having an understanding of basic economic principles is somehow "elitist", I guess I am. But to me confusing an understanding of such principles with elitism makes you an idiot.
"I've got the money, so it sucks to be you"
I certainly could not afford the true market value of a concert ticket for a major touring act.
On the post: Ticketmaster Trying To Cut Down On Scalpers... Or Increase Fee Collection For Itself?
What issue could there be with buying low and selling high? Is that illegal now?
If the artists and venues set ticket prices which accurately reflected demand, scalpers would and could no longer exist.
And please don't whine about high ticket prices. There are plenty of things in life we cannot afford. There is no right to cheap prices on the things we want. If you can't afford something, earn more money or live without it.
On the post: Musicians Are Never Just About The Music
Did you mean "producing the music" or "promoting the music"? "Promoting the music" doesn't make much sense in context with the rest of the sentence. Promoting music is not much different from marketing music.
However "producing" music sets up a contrast between the creation of music and the marketing of music.
On the post: Alumnus Sues NYU Over Logo That The School Asked Her To Design
On the post: Fox Paid $60k For Video Footage Of Madoff On A Yacht... And Still Gets Sued For Copyright Infringement
Re: Well...
On the post: Jurors Required To Sign Promises Not To Google Details Of Case
Re: Re:
What I described was lawyers making the trial less ambiguous and making the entire system more efficient.
Appellate attorneys love ambiguity. They love being able to pick at small errors which may have occurred at the trial court. Appellate attorneys would much rather have an ambiguous record so they can poke holes in it later. "Did the jury really know they were not supposed to search the net about the case, we don't know." Such ambiguities increase the costs of litigation and keeps judgments and verdicts from being finalized.
I cannot understand why you think making a clear and unambiguous record is somehow a bad thing. Wait, are you an appellate attorney?
On the post: Fox Paid $60k For Video Footage Of Madoff On A Yacht... And Still Gets Sued For Copyright Infringement
It just seems ludicrous that I can videotape someone else doing same random act and then claim a copyright on it. How does me videotaping my neighbor mowing his law "promotes the Progress of Science and useful Arts"?!
On the post: Jurors Required To Sign Promises Not To Google Details Of Case
Here's how it works. The judge doesn't give a rat's ass whether the jury searches the net on the criminal trial he's presiding over. But he does not want the defendant to file an appeal later saying that he (the defendant) did not receive a fair trial because the jury was searching on the net.
The appellate court would look at the signed promises with the presumption that no such searching took place. To overcome that presumption the defendant would have to come up with hard evidence that members of the jury violated the promise, that they were prejudiced by what they found, and that the outcome of the trial would have been different if it had not occurred.
In other words, any conviction of the defendant is less likely to be overturned on appeal with these written promises.
Where you guys see pointless and wasteful procedure. Lawyers see a check-mate.
On the post: Anti-bullying Laws Don't Work Offline; Why Do Politicians Think They'll Work Online?
On the post: More Evidence: Used Sales Benefit The Primary Market
On the post: Disney Sued For Selling The Pixar Lamp... And The Lawsuit Makes Sense
Yep, this is exactly the sort of situation trademark is supposed to cover. Disney's action and reaction is quite bizarre.
On the post: And What's The Deal With Copyright Misuse? Seinfeld Cookbook Doesn't Infringe
On the post: Publicity Rights Of Dead People: Courtney Love Threatens Activision Over Kurt Cobain In Guitar Hero
Re:
On the post: Publicity Rights Of Dead People: Courtney Love Threatens Activision Over Kurt Cobain In Guitar Hero
On the post: DRM Company: If You Think Patents Are Bad, You're Un-American
I think his point is that it's un-American to hurt the status quo.
On the post: How Performing Rights Groups Funnel Money To Top Acts And Ignore Smaller Acts
Re: Re: Re: They Monitor the Top 200
Most musicians who cover music do so in smaller places such as bars or night clubs.
I know from experience from the 80s and 90s that when we played in bars we'd have to turn over our set list to the bar so it could turn it over to ASCAP/BMI. The thought was that the song writers of the songs we were covering were getting paid for our performances. But, apparently, that's not true. Apparently, ASCAP/BMI collects such money, but never dishes it back out.
So sure, if Brittany Spears does a Rolling Stones cover on her tour, the Rolling Stones will get a cut. But if my band does a Husker Du cover at a local bar, Husker Du does not receive a dime, even though ASCAP/BMI does collect money for our performance.
Once again, a lot of money goes in, but only a little goes out. And when it goes out, it goes almost exclusively to major artists.
On the post: How Performing Rights Groups Funnel Money To Top Acts And Ignore Smaller Acts
Re: They Monitor the Top 200
All venues pay into ASCAP/BMI for the live acts they have. ASCAP/BMI both collect all of that money for all such live performances at the venues. However, ASCAP/BMI only pay out for the top two hundred bands.
So out of thousands upon thousands of live performances the ASCAP/BMI collects upon each year, they are only paying out on a tiny portion of them.
Exactly where is the rest of that money going?
On the post: Complaints Against Google Book Scanning Project Reach Ridiculous Levels
Only because Jack Valenti didn't run the Authors Guild.
On the post: Can A Phone Service Provider Block Calls To Numbers It Doesn't Like?
Make up your mind, Mike!
Now apparently you do want regulation on VoIP. You want the feds to treat VoIP services as good old fashion common carriers, like land lines.
What's your real opinion on the issue, Mike?
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