G-Dub and Dick did think of that - it's called the Patriot Act. It led to the warrantless wiretapping, which was recently legalized by congress. A large part of the surveillance that the administration (former and current) uses is still classified, and is suspected to include voice, email, and data.
If the government ever opened up about how much they watch us, there would be tremendous backlash.
The key to remember is that if your business focus is to help others AND you can find a way to make money at it, you will succeed. If your focus is to get as much money as you can, you will fail.
They need, as Mike suggests, to ask their consumers what they want, what they are willing to pay for it, and then provide it to them. They ought to spend at least 10% of their effort on crazy R&D ideas to see what works and if they can monetize it. With the way business moves today, if you stagnate you die.
Or you could realize that people putting vending machines in places you don't have the time or reach to service still allows you to sell them candy, and you still make money. In fact, this is basically what franchising is. Your candy line would make a lot more money if you had fiscally driven independents out there trying to make themselves more money by putting out more machines and thus ordering more of your candy.
If iTunes makes money on the music downloads, why wouldn't they want to let any and every device use it?! This anticompetitive behavior really only hurts them.
A big market in any product chain is the actual distribution segment - those who move product from the factory to the retail store. (This is one of the reasons Walmart is so cheap as they own the distribution channels.) With physical goods, these companies control the main bottleneck and therefore can extract a premium for their "service". One reason you see a MSRP on goods is so that these distribution channels don't price a manufacturer's goods out of competition.
Since this was the major source of revenue for record labels in the past, they monopolized it internally. Since the majority of their money came from this they began to believe (or at least act like they believe) that they were in the music distribution business. While this is a revenue generator it requires large companies, in this case EMI, to be concerned with small ones, here the independent record stores. It requires building and maintaining good relationships with the customers, and when they serviced the entire retail music business, they had a lot of independent music stores to relate to. That gets time consuming and expensive so they sought ways to stop doing it. As Ima Fish said, they killed the independent record store to cut down on their customers and thus their cost.
However, outsourcing gained popularity and distribution companies came into the picture. The labels could then sell all their product to a very limited number of customers. The money saved by not having to invest as much time in smaller companies and not having the same staff costs became more attractive than the money made by doing it all themselves. Since there was a smaller piece of the price to take, these distribution companies put less effort into marketing to small businesses, gave less incentives to small business, and pretty much let small businesses languish in favor of larger, higher volume customers.
One of the side effects of the labels removing themselves from contact with the independent store is that they lost contact with the independents stores' customers. These are the customers who drive the new music development (once someone is big enough to get into a big box store like Best Buy they are already in heavy radio rotation). If you wanted to see where music was headed up through the 90's, you went to an independent store. If you wanted to find the next big thing you went to an independent store. If you wanted to find a band before they sold out, you pretty much had to go to an independent music store.
EMI, by cutting themselves off from indies completely, is truly signing its own death warrant. Given how long the labels have tried to kill the independents (after all, most independents never really pushed the cash-cow-of-the-month-pop-idol) is it really any wonder they would be so far removed from the will of their ultimate clientele? They believe their customer is either the big box store of the the distributor rather than the end consumer. Everything they are doing makes total sense as trying to protect their perceived customer base from threats to their perceived customer base.
I know this is a very simplified and macro view of the situation. There are many other bits and pieces that fit in and play a role, but the all the major labels have lost sight of who their true customer is and what business they are actually in. Unless and until they realize where they need to focus to make money now, they are doomed and this boneheaded moves proves it.
But they can do so by seeing who is not getting their work done, rather than by simply blocking all access to anyone.
The problem is that this requires a level of management and oversight that infringes upon managers and supervisors desire and ability to offload responsibility onto technology.
Seems like they want to control the ability to buy and sell domain names in an open market. Imagine if you could buy 20 shares in candy.com and then collect rent for someone using that domain name. It's actually a kind of interesting idea in that it would allow domain squatters another avenue to monetize their domain holdings.
How about "Optimal" for nothing working but the screen at lowest setting, "Factory" or "Pristine" for everything operating that is installed on it from the manufacturer (including radios and crapware), and "Expected" for everything running as a normal user would have it configured - radios on, screen bright enough to use, and HDD accessible.
Computer and component manufacturers have stretched the truth as far as they can every time they can. It took a class action suit to make monitor manufacturers tell the truth about their usable size (called viewable area).
I'm glad people hold manufacturers' feet to the fire when they use misleading advertising and labeling. It doesn't stop them from using other deceptive practices but at least it might stop this one.
The studios are only mad about organized crime selling counterfeit dvds because it impacts their (dying) cash cow. organized crime has simply recognized the same racket the studios have been using - an artificial scarcity caused by a bottleneck in distribution. Remove that artificial scarcity and there is no profit motive for organized crime or terrorists. Seems like these reporters missed a great opportunity to point out how all the "illegal" downloading has helped fight terrorism and the mob at the same time.
The original agreement with the people was to allow content creators exclusive use to their creation for a limited time. Over the years congress has extended the limited time from 14 + 14 years to life + 70 years. In the US the extension from 28 + 28 years to life + 50 was to come into line with a treaty that wasn't signed until 12 years after the law went into effect. The major proponents of this change were the RIAA (formed in 1952) the MPAA (formed in 1922) and the players in the industries they represent. Movie studios back the RIAA because it helps them, and likewise record labels back the MPAA.
Since the copyright and patent clause of the US constitution was so hard to get around, the RIAA & MPAA through their international affiliates moved their efforts to Europe. Then, through the Berne Convention, those international laws were forced upon the US in violation of the US constitution through a treaty.
The 1976 revision of the copyright act took some works out of the public domian, such as the happy birthday song which copyrighted was registered in 1935, though it first appeared in print in 1912. That song was actually based on the tune of another song written in 1893. Based on original publication date the copyright should have expired in 1940 or 1968 with the extension, however based on copyright registration date that should have expired 1963 or 1991 with extension. According to the current owner, the 1976 revision made the copyright good through 2030.
Since the happy birthday song was taken up to the supreme court of this land and found to be still under copyright, what is considered the most recognized song in the English language cannot be sung in public, on TV, in a movie, on the radio, or in a park where someone could hear it without paying the guy who bought the rights in 1990.
I would say this exemplifies Mike's comment about how "[t]he RIAA and its supporters have taken content out of the public domain, making a government go back on a bargain it struck with content creators, much to the detriment of society, but very much to the benefit of a few record label execs and their lobbyists and lawyers."
This one guy, who had nothing to do with the original creation of the song has stolen a bit of our cultural heritage. What we used to hear on a regular basis in restaurants has been replaced with waiters clapping and singing a almost frighteningly upbeat version of some song their lawyers allow them to sing rather than a song that binds our culture together.
The constitution is an agreement by the people of this nation how to be governed. Article 1 section 8 of the US Constitution states "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." The Copyright Act of 1790 instituted a copyright of 14 years with an extension of another 14 years.
The 1831 Revision of the Copyright Act made it 28 years with a 14 year extension.
The 1834 case Wheaton v. Peters upheld the constitutional view that copyright was for a limited time only instead of a "perpetual natural right" and that copyrights were granted by the federal government "in order to serve the public interest in promoting the creation and dissemination of new works."
The 1909 Revision of the U.S. Copyright Act extended copyright to 28 years with a possible 28 year extension. It was an attempt to balance protection and compensation for the owner of the work with protection of the public. It was also intended to prevent oppressive monopolies from forming.
The 1976 Revision of the U.S. Copyright Act was enacted to keep the US in accordance with international standards under the upcoming Berne Convention. It extended copyright protection to life of the author plus 50 years. Works for hire would be protected for 75 years from creation. This also formalized fair use and first sale rights. Fair use would be judged on the use's purpose and character, the copyrighted work's nature, how much and how important the portion used is compared to the whole, and the use's effect on the potential market. It also stated "the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright."
When the US signed the Berne Convention in 1988 it created copyright relationships with 24 countries and eliminated copyright notification requirements.
In 1992 the US Congress amended Section 304 of Title 17 made renewal automatic. This protected a lot of works copyrighted before 1978 - i.e. Mickey Mouse.
In 1998 the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act extended copyright from life of the author + 50 years to life + 70 years. A court case later on would claim this extension was given to help corporations like Disney hold on to copyright for another 20 years. Since Walt Disney died on 12/15/1966 his copyrights would be over in 2016. This act extended Disney's control over Walt's works until 2036. The DMCA was also instituted this year which for some reason protected boat hull designs.
All art is based on something else - first nature and then a combination of nature of the artists who came before. The right of authors to create new works based on older works has been taken away, and thus there has a steady decline of the public's right and ability to create new works. The stories we heard as kids we cannot now use to create new stories. New stories don't come from nowhere, they come from our experiences. Curtailing our ability to synthesize our experiences into a new stories steals from us our ability to create new work. While protecting creators from unauthorized commercial use, it also rewards the laziness of past creators and punishes the work of new creators.
For a fuller view of copyright history and the important court cases surrounding it (instead of asking someone else to do the work for you) do a Google search or check out the page I used to create this timeline.
King Lear is believed to be written sometime between 1603 and 1606. Given the current length of copyright in the US, anything after 1533 to 1536 (assuming every author died upon publication) would have a viable copyright claim. That includes every work cited above except Historia Regum Britanniae by Geoffrey of Monmouth.
Next questions:
What does it cost to stage a 1000 person show?
What does it cost to run a 10 stop tour?
How much was made on merchandise per show?
What was the average net take per person?
How big would be the expected crowd with a traditional buy-tickets-in-advance model?
How would be the expected income (tickets + merchandise) compare to the actual take from the free-show model?
And the biggest question - how many more people are now fans than would have been with the traditional model?
On the post: Will France's Three Strikes Law Also Allow Gov't Email Surveillance?
Re: Re: Re: Sigh
On the post: Will France's Three Strikes Law Also Allow Gov't Email Surveillance?
Re: Sigh
If the government ever opened up about how much they watch us, there would be tremendous backlash.
On the post: Can The Lottery Make People Save More?
so in other words
On the post: CwF + RtB = Techdirt
Nice
On the post: EMI's CEO Admits Company 'Lost Touch' But Doesn't Seem To Know How To Fix It
If you don't know, ask!
They need, as Mike suggests, to ask their consumers what they want, what they are willing to pay for it, and then provide it to them. They ought to spend at least 10% of their effort on crazy R&D ideas to see what works and if they can monetize it. With the way business moves today, if you stagnate you die.
On the post: Plato And The RIAA Have Some Views In Common: Gov't Should Stop Remixes
modal changes
On the post: Apple Does As Many Expected: Kills Palm Pre iTunes Syncing
Re: Itunes and candy
If iTunes makes money on the music downloads, why wouldn't they want to let any and every device use it?! This anticompetitive behavior really only hurts them.
On the post: EMI Stops Selling CDs To Indie Record Stores
You're forgetting the distributors
Since this was the major source of revenue for record labels in the past, they monopolized it internally. Since the majority of their money came from this they began to believe (or at least act like they believe) that they were in the music distribution business. While this is a revenue generator it requires large companies, in this case EMI, to be concerned with small ones, here the independent record stores. It requires building and maintaining good relationships with the customers, and when they serviced the entire retail music business, they had a lot of independent music stores to relate to. That gets time consuming and expensive so they sought ways to stop doing it. As Ima Fish said, they killed the independent record store to cut down on their customers and thus their cost.
However, outsourcing gained popularity and distribution companies came into the picture. The labels could then sell all their product to a very limited number of customers. The money saved by not having to invest as much time in smaller companies and not having the same staff costs became more attractive than the money made by doing it all themselves. Since there was a smaller piece of the price to take, these distribution companies put less effort into marketing to small businesses, gave less incentives to small business, and pretty much let small businesses languish in favor of larger, higher volume customers.
One of the side effects of the labels removing themselves from contact with the independent store is that they lost contact with the independents stores' customers. These are the customers who drive the new music development (once someone is big enough to get into a big box store like Best Buy they are already in heavy radio rotation). If you wanted to see where music was headed up through the 90's, you went to an independent store. If you wanted to find the next big thing you went to an independent store. If you wanted to find a band before they sold out, you pretty much had to go to an independent music store.
EMI, by cutting themselves off from indies completely, is truly signing its own death warrant. Given how long the labels have tried to kill the independents (after all, most independents never really pushed the cash-cow-of-the-month-pop-idol) is it really any wonder they would be so far removed from the will of their ultimate clientele? They believe their customer is either the big box store of the the distributor rather than the end consumer. Everything they are doing makes total sense as trying to protect their perceived customer base from threats to their perceived customer base.
I know this is a very simplified and macro view of the situation. There are many other bits and pieces that fit in and play a role, but the all the major labels have lost sight of who their true customer is and what business they are actually in. Unless and until they realize where they need to focus to make money now, they are doomed and this boneheaded moves proves it.
On the post: Younger Employees Teaching Companies That Personal Surfing Isn't Evil
While I agree...
On the post: McDonald's Not Dismissed From Nude Photo Case... But It Can Sue Its Own Employee Too
Re: Re:
On the post: Radiohead Manager, Nettwerk Launch New Label: Artists Get To Keep Their Copyright
Who won't sign up
On the post: Why Would Selling Equity In A Domain Name Deserve A Patent?
It's a new trader's market
On the post: Class Action Lawsuit Filed Over Bogus Laptop Battery Length Claims
Truth in Advertising
Computer and component manufacturers have stretched the truth as far as they can every time they can. It took a class action suit to make monitor manufacturers tell the truth about their usable size (called viewable area).
I'm glad people hold manufacturers' feet to the fire when they use misleading advertising and labeling. It doesn't stop them from using other deceptive practices but at least it might stop this one.
On the post: Forget Video Games, Why Aren't Politicians Complaining About Chess?
Re: Evolution in progress
On the post: Australian Press Prints Movie Industry Myths About Piracy Funding Terrorism
organized crime
On the post: RIAA Claims Jammie Thomas Jury Is A Representative Sample Of Views On File Sharing
Re: Re: Re: Huh?
The original agreement with the people was to allow content creators exclusive use to their creation for a limited time. Over the years congress has extended the limited time from 14 + 14 years to life + 70 years. In the US the extension from 28 + 28 years to life + 50 was to come into line with a treaty that wasn't signed until 12 years after the law went into effect. The major proponents of this change were the RIAA (formed in 1952) the MPAA (formed in 1922) and the players in the industries they represent. Movie studios back the RIAA because it helps them, and likewise record labels back the MPAA.
Since the copyright and patent clause of the US constitution was so hard to get around, the RIAA & MPAA through their international affiliates moved their efforts to Europe. Then, through the Berne Convention, those international laws were forced upon the US in violation of the US constitution through a treaty.
The 1976 revision of the copyright act took some works out of the public domian, such as the happy birthday song which copyrighted was registered in 1935, though it first appeared in print in 1912. That song was actually based on the tune of another song written in 1893. Based on original publication date the copyright should have expired in 1940 or 1968 with the extension, however based on copyright registration date that should have expired 1963 or 1991 with extension. According to the current owner, the 1976 revision made the copyright good through 2030.
Since the happy birthday song was taken up to the supreme court of this land and found to be still under copyright, what is considered the most recognized song in the English language cannot be sung in public, on TV, in a movie, on the radio, or in a park where someone could hear it without paying the guy who bought the rights in 1990.
I would say this exemplifies Mike's comment about how "[t]he RIAA and its supporters have taken content out of the public domain, making a government go back on a bargain it struck with content creators, much to the detriment of society, but very much to the benefit of a few record label execs and their lobbyists and lawyers."
This one guy, who had nothing to do with the original creation of the song has stolen a bit of our cultural heritage. What we used to hear on a regular basis in restaurants has been replaced with waiters clapping and singing a almost frighteningly upbeat version of some song their lawyers allow them to sing rather than a song that binds our culture together.
On the post: RIAA Claims Jammie Thomas Jury Is A Representative Sample Of Views On File Sharing
Re: Huh?
The constitution is an agreement by the people of this nation how to be governed. Article 1 section 8 of the US Constitution states "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." The Copyright Act of 1790 instituted a copyright of 14 years with an extension of another 14 years.
The 1831 Revision of the Copyright Act made it 28 years with a 14 year extension.
The 1834 case Wheaton v. Peters upheld the constitutional view that copyright was for a limited time only instead of a "perpetual natural right" and that copyrights were granted by the federal government "in order to serve the public interest in promoting the creation and dissemination of new works."
The 1909 Revision of the U.S. Copyright Act extended copyright to 28 years with a possible 28 year extension. It was an attempt to balance protection and compensation for the owner of the work with protection of the public. It was also intended to prevent oppressive monopolies from forming.
The 1976 Revision of the U.S. Copyright Act was enacted to keep the US in accordance with international standards under the upcoming Berne Convention. It extended copyright protection to life of the author plus 50 years. Works for hire would be protected for 75 years from creation. This also formalized fair use and first sale rights. Fair use would be judged on the use's purpose and character, the copyrighted work's nature, how much and how important the portion used is compared to the whole, and the use's effect on the potential market. It also stated "the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright."
When the US signed the Berne Convention in 1988 it created copyright relationships with 24 countries and eliminated copyright notification requirements.
In 1992 the US Congress amended Section 304 of Title 17 made renewal automatic. This protected a lot of works copyrighted before 1978 - i.e. Mickey Mouse.
In 1998 the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act extended copyright from life of the author + 50 years to life + 70 years. A court case later on would claim this extension was given to help corporations like Disney hold on to copyright for another 20 years. Since Walt Disney died on 12/15/1966 his copyrights would be over in 2016. This act extended Disney's control over Walt's works until 2036. The DMCA was also instituted this year which for some reason protected boat hull designs.
All art is based on something else - first nature and then a combination of nature of the artists who came before. The right of authors to create new works based on older works has been taken away, and thus there has a steady decline of the public's right and ability to create new works. The stories we heard as kids we cannot now use to create new stories. New stories don't come from nowhere, they come from our experiences. Curtailing our ability to synthesize our experiences into a new stories steals from us our ability to create new work. While protecting creators from unauthorized commercial use, it also rewards the laziness of past creators and punishes the work of new creators.
For a fuller view of copyright history and the important court cases surrounding it (instead of asking someone else to do the work for you) do a Google search or check out the page I used to create this timeline.
On the post: Richard Marx, One Of The Artists Jammie Thomas Supposedly Shared, Blasts Verdict, Apologizes
Re: Re: Wonderful
On the post: Would King Lear Ever Have Been Written If Copyright Law Existed?
Re:
On the post: Nettwerk, Topspin Show: Give People A Reason To Buy... And Many Of Them Come Through
money money money
Next questions:
What does it cost to stage a 1000 person show?
What does it cost to run a 10 stop tour?
How much was made on merchandise per show?
What was the average net take per person?
How big would be the expected crowd with a traditional buy-tickets-in-advance model?
How would be the expected income (tickets + merchandise) compare to the actual take from the free-show model?
And the biggest question - how many more people are now fans than would have been with the traditional model?
Next >>