Fan X has $50 to spend, and wants to support Morrissey.
Fax X knows the box set is coming out for the example-frendly price of $50.
Fan X also knows that Morrissey will be playing the next town over, and costs to see the concert are conveniently also $50.
All else being equal, the box set would provide repeatable enjoyment and seeing the show would have the added cost of time spent driving/watching the show/etc. The Box Set looks like a marginal winner. Fan X buys the box set and doesn't see the show. Unbeknownst to Fan X, he loses his $50 without getting a dime to Morissey.
Contrast this with free music which could potentially have the same or more promotional value as the box set, but will not deprive Fan X of his $50. Fan X can not get the music AND see the show, and Morrissey gets paid.
Napster started in 1999, was caught in legal troubles in 2000, and shut its doors in mid-2001.
iTunes was introduced as Mac-only in 2001 and wasn't available for PCs until late 2003. That's 4 years after Napster hit, and 2 years after Napster closed it's doors. What's more, iTunes for Windows only supports syncing with the iPod which limits it's usability for people who don't want to pay premium for Apple-brand products.
Additionally, music bought from the iTunes store before 2009 was DRM-protected and couldn't be played on non-iPod devices.
So... yeah. iTunes was late, limited, and weak. The Industry worked with Apple, for reasons I still don't understand, and THAT'S why it dominates the way it does these days -- the industry killed all it's competition for them.
but by not over-reacting and demanding the video be taken down
You're giving Sony too much credit. The Internets just move too fast, and people started handing them money before they could get their legal guns loaded. If not for that this vid would have been silenced like all the others.
Even granting that general utility can be measured accordingly, internet users may choose a network on the sole basis of its being a better alternative than any others, or because their specific subset of friends are on there(which changes the utility of a service specific to them), or because it is the hot thing to do.
(1) What makes a social network a better alternative? A cleaner interfece, more apps, more people to interact with? If it's not "better" by something intrinsic to itself, what draws these better things?
(2) When talking about "a specific subset of friends," you're now talking about a cross between that subset and "people willing to pay" for the site. But you're defining "people willing to pay" as people who have friends there. As soon as you start discouraging people from using your site (by charging), you'll find fewer and fewer people fall into this category; the more people leave, the fewer friends who are there, and so even more people leave.
(3) Why is something "the hot thing"? Because it's popular. because people are doing it. But when you're discouraging people from using your site, it's unlikely to really become popular.
Yes, these things may keep some peple there for some time, and it may convince them to pay for your service for a little bit, but I can't imagine that it's very sustainable.
Unless, of course, they want to lose all their customers.
You're doing it wrong. Facebook's customers aren't they're users. Their customers are advertisers. The users are their product. Facebook harvests time and screen-space from it's users and sells that to advertisers. If it started charging people for the "privledge," it would run out of things to sell.
if you want to make broad claims that there has been a sea-change in the music business and that new business models are "not the exception at all. [They are] the rule."
I think what we have here is a failure to communicate. mike isn't say there's been a sea-change and that everyone "in the business" is using these new modles. rather, he's saying that these models work, and here's a dozen example to show it (including large, small, and middling artists). When he says this (the modles work), detractors come around and say, "it works for Artist X because he's big" or "it works for Artist Y because he's small" or "it works for artist Z because she's middling," anlways followed by "but it won't work for the majority of artists." And it's that "but" that Mike's disputing.
You're right, it's not "the rule" as in "this is the way business gets done," but it is the rule as in "this is sound economics that can work for anyone."
I think Mike was talking about "having a similar sound," not "sounding the same." Pop music aside, lots of bands can fall into the same genre of music without being audiably identical. The "problem" with large, diverse lables is that there's nothing that says if I like two or three bands signed with them that I'd like any of the others they have signed. That may not be a problem, really, if I'm willing to subscribe based on those two or three artists alone (maybe I'll try out the other stuff and accidentally find something I like), but if there's reason to believe I WILL like the majority of the artists signed by a lable (because they all share a similar sound) I'm probably MORE likely to subscribe.
Not Mike, but... One thing that comes to mind is that if i'm not spending money on buying music, I DO have more money to spend on other things, like concerts and the like. So the market kind of expands in that way. Also, the efficiencies that allow for free music also lower the financial threshold for "breaking in" to music, so more artists can afford to join the market now than before. That kind of expands the market, too. Plus, people are able to get more exposure to more music, so instead of having a few superstars like U2 and the Beatles you have a lot more musicians of a lot more diversity able to make a living being musicians than before. So that kind of expands the market, too.
I think you're right, there's not more time or money, necessarily, being put into the system, but that's not really the only way to "expand" the market.
Should've asked on a post discussing music or the economics of free, though, rather than one focused onstrange EULAs.
No, not really. Because if you're guaranteed income for 15 to 20 years from what you do today, how motivated are you going to be to create anything tomorrow? More fundamentally, if I have to tiptoe through a mine-field of pre-existing copyright and fuzzy senses of 'fair used,' how likely am *I* to create content? If I can be taken to court because my bass line *sounds* like your base line, creating content becomes a *liability* to me.
I imagine your point is to say, "that's all well and good in theory, Mike M., but here in *reality* people are losing their jobs because of piracy." The problem is that as tragic as that may be, it's not the point -- and strictly speaking, they aren't losing their jobs because of Piracy, they're losing their jobs because EMI has struggled to hang onto a failing business model. EMI is trying to keep doing what it's been doing for X years when it (obviously) no longer works.
"That's all well and good, Some Guy, but here in *reality* people are losing their jobs." I would argue, and I think Mike M. would agree, that they don't have to be. Even if you look at EMI as SOLELY "a merchant of CDs" there are plenty of ways they can leverage the free distribution of music as a way to sell CDs. They can put extra content on the CD itself, video media, interviews with the band, etc, which would be minimal cost to them. They could actually make the CD insert valuable, with lyrics, maybe guitar tabs, interviews, et cetera. They could link physical CDs to an oline site, and use serial numbers or whatever to grant access to exclusive content. But they're not. They're trying to hold onto the idea of "just selling music" and the market has changed.
On the post: Morrissey: Don't Buy My Music
Re:
Fax X knows the box set is coming out for the example-frendly price of $50.
Fan X also knows that Morrissey will be playing the next town over, and costs to see the concert are conveniently also $50.
All else being equal, the box set would provide repeatable enjoyment and seeing the show would have the added cost of time spent driving/watching the show/etc. The Box Set looks like a marginal winner. Fan X buys the box set and doesn't see the show. Unbeknownst to Fan X, he loses his $50 without getting a dime to Morissey.
Contrast this with free music which could potentially have the same or more promotional value as the box set, but will not deprive Fan X of his $50. Fan X can not get the music AND see the show, and Morrissey gets paid.
See? Box Set != Free Music.
On the post: Patry: It's Not Copyright That Creates Value, It's Consumers' Willingness To Buy
Re:
iTunes was introduced as Mac-only in 2001 and wasn't available for PCs until late 2003. That's 4 years after Napster hit, and 2 years after Napster closed it's doors. What's more, iTunes for Windows only supports syncing with the iPod which limits it's usability for people who don't want to pay premium for Apple-brand products.
Additionally, music bought from the iTunes store before 2009 was DRM-protected and couldn't be played on non-iPod devices.
So... yeah. iTunes was late, limited, and weak. The Industry worked with Apple, for reasons I still don't understand, and THAT'S why it dominates the way it does these days -- the industry killed all it's competition for them.
On the post: Should Wedding Party In Viral YouTube Video Get A Cut Of Music Sale Profits?
Re: Re: *Sigh*
You're giving Sony too much credit. The Internets just move too fast, and people started handing them money before they could get their legal guns loaded. If not for that this vid would have been silenced like all the others.
On the post: What Would Happen If Social Networking Sites Charged
Re: Re:
(1) What makes a social network a better alternative? A cleaner interfece, more apps, more people to interact with? If it's not "better" by something intrinsic to itself, what draws these better things?
(2) When talking about "a specific subset of friends," you're now talking about a cross between that subset and "people willing to pay" for the site. But you're defining "people willing to pay" as people who have friends there. As soon as you start discouraging people from using your site (by charging), you'll find fewer and fewer people fall into this category; the more people leave, the fewer friends who are there, and so even more people leave.
(3) Why is something "the hot thing"? Because it's popular. because people are doing it. But when you're discouraging people from using your site, it's unlikely to really become popular.
Yes, these things may keep some peple there for some time, and it may convince them to pay for your service for a little bit, but I can't imagine that it's very sustainable.
On the post: What Would Happen If Social Networking Sites Charged
Re: Charging for Social Networks
You're doing it wrong. Facebook's customers aren't they're users. Their customers are advertisers. The users are their product. Facebook harvests time and screen-space from it's users and sells that to advertisers. If it started charging people for the "privledge," it would run out of things to sell.
On the post: Jack White The Latest Musician To Experiment With Smart New Business Models
Re:
I think what we have here is a failure to communicate. mike isn't say there's been a sea-change and that everyone "in the business" is using these new modles. rather, he's saying that these models work, and here's a dozen example to show it (including large, small, and middling artists). When he says this (the modles work), detractors come around and say, "it works for Artist X because he's big" or "it works for Artist Y because he's small" or "it works for artist Z because she's middling," anlways followed by "but it won't work for the majority of artists." And it's that "but" that Mike's disputing.
You're right, it's not "the rule" as in "this is the way business gets done," but it is the rule as in "this is sound economics that can work for anyone."
On the post: Jack White The Latest Musician To Experiment With Smart New Business Models
Re: This isn't going to work
One where you might get to talk to the artists?
they don't want to deal with ... the internet when they could be doing drugs.
Oh, you think the artists are chumps, anyways.
Then the platinum sells gives you "exclusive" 12 & 7 inch records, which will be online within a matter of days of their release to club members.
The music might be on the Internet, but the records won't be. These days, physical records are obviously meants as novelty collector's items.
On the post: Jack White The Latest Musician To Experiment With Smart New Business Models
Re:
On the post: Why Does Wal-Mart Need A 3,379-Word Terms Of Use For Its Twitter Account?
Re: Attention as a Scarce Resource
I think you're right, there's not more time or money, necessarily, being put into the system, but that's not really the only way to "expand" the market.
Should've asked on a post discussing music or the economics of free, though, rather than one focused onstrange EULAs.
On the post: Do You Actually Understand What Copyright Is For?
Re: Davkaus
On the post: Do You Actually Understand What Copyright Is For?
Re: someone tell EMI
"That's all well and good, Some Guy, but here in *reality* people are losing their jobs." I would argue, and I think Mike M. would agree, that they don't have to be. Even if you look at EMI as SOLELY "a merchant of CDs" there are plenty of ways they can leverage the free distribution of music as a way to sell CDs. They can put extra content on the CD itself, video media, interviews with the band, etc, which would be minimal cost to them. They could actually make the CD insert valuable, with lyrics, maybe guitar tabs, interviews, et cetera. They could link physical CDs to an oline site, and use serial numbers or whatever to grant access to exclusive content. But they're not. They're trying to hold onto the idea of "just selling music" and the market has changed.
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