The people making the videos aren't making any money, so a universe in which artists have to be comped for lipdubs is a universe where lipdubs just aren't a thing.
Who does that benefit? No one in the history of ever has said "hey, I was going to buy this single but I just saw this dude's lipdub so forget that noise", but at least some people have decided to check an artist out after watching the dub.
I read through the piece, and tbh it reads like a puff piece written for the industry. The authors basically state that they took the numbers in an industry blog post made during the superbowl and used MATH to make them EVEN HIGHER and that something-something justifies the outrageous prices they charge for many drugs. The article mentions a contrary analysis only for the purposes of responding, to whit "lol come on these guys must be wrong".
Pretty absurd. The authors should be ashamed of themselves unless they got an envelope full of cash for this.
Also, IMO, a really good comment section features roiling disagreement/dislike that is always one step from erupting into an outright flame war. When things are too tame it's just not satisfying to read or post.
There's a common usage of Property that is what everyone here except you is talking about. You even acknowledge that you're aware that's what's going on. The response of anyone but a total dick (or a lawyer, I guess) would be to stop trying to reframe the discussion.
Why haven't you acknowledged that as a practical matter, to own property requires both the right and the ability to exclude?
FWIW I think the theoretical improvements in track and e-book purchases are probably overstated relative to what would hapen if publishers actually changed their pricing policies, because at decision time consumers are still basically faced with paying for something or getting the exact same thing for free with the same level of convenience.
For streaming services they're probably accurate, though.
"Mike's whole point is that they can just give it away since it's nonrivalrous."
No, that's not his point at all.
Mike's point is that ANYONE can just give it away because it's nonrivalrous and nonexcludable. It's not just that the rightsholder can give away infinite copies, it's that anyone who comes across a copy can also give away infinite copies. Whatever property rights exist in copyrights are as a practical matter unenforcable, so it's plain weird to talk about copyright as property in the way that's commonly understood by non-lawyers and people who don't have asperger's syndrome.
Sure, but the radios just pick up broadcasts that are free to listen to in any other context. Why should anyone, business or otherwise, pay for additional licenses to tune into content that is being broadcast for free?
"What you are missing is that many startups are missing out because they either cannot sell the products for a reasonable price, or cannot extract enough value from their presentation / distribution to make it work out. They cannot do it because they are specifically competing with the same product being given away for free."
1) What startups are you talking about? Do you mean hypothetical startups?
2) If a startup is failing because because it's trying to sell something that its prospective customers can already get for free the problem is not that people can get it for free.
"Piracy is a problem because it offers a zero cost alternative to all of it. Without piracy, those who wanted to see the show (but didn't want to pay for cable) would instead pay or rent the product when it is released on DVD or for download."
It's a problem for the companies who used their dominance of the distribution system to reap fat profits off of consumers, but it's a huge improvement for the consumers who now have choices, isn't it?
"Both parties are entitled to walk away from a transaction that they feel is not giving them what they."
That's true...but then sellers are entitled to approach other buyers and buyers are entitled to approach other sellers, if they think they can get better terms. That's the way markets work and why markets are efficient.
Infringement is an example of a market seeking efficiency - potential buyers who don't like deal they can get from some distributors go to other distributors who serve their needs better. That's the very definition of how a market should behave, and we should be THANKFUL that people are willing to do it because it provides competition that might cause so-called legitimate providers to improve their offerings.
The framing of the "right or realistic" post is all wrong, imo. The framing should be "Take care of the consumer because otherwise the consumer will take care of himself."
"In the meanwhile, because you are buying only selected limited rights for a very limited price, you need to think past the end of your nose."
Huh? What's this full cost that you're talking about?
The cost of digital distribution is effectively zero, so there's no variable cost to cover.
And if it cost $10k (for instance) to record a track and you sell 10k digital downloads netting $1 each you've fully recouped all your production costs on the first 10k units sold.
After that you're asking listeners to pay money for content whose production costs have already been paid that costs nothing to copy.
What does "full cost" mean in a context like that?
You'd need almost 10x the market to make the same gross on $2 downloads as on $20 DVDs, assuming (probably correctly, because that's a 90% savings) that most of those DVD sales would convert to downloads. Might you make that up? Yeah...maybe...but it seems like pretty long odds and your net take on each sale is going to be lower, too.
The ACs below both have it right. The studios are being rational, but they should also quit bitching about piracy.
If you can control distribution well enough to price discriminate (by generating artificial scarcity) then that is an awesome business model. You can't get much better than that without reading consumers' minds and charging them exactly the maximum they're willing to pay for your products. IMO, the posters pointing out why the labels/studios prefer to play that game aren't wrong.
The problem for the labels/studios is that copying digital goods is so easy that they can't play that game as well as they used to. People can just route around their clumsy attempts at price discrimination (and I cannot stress enough how knowing how they are trying to milk my wallet makes me give not one single fuck about doing this) so the labels/studios lose some sales they could have made had they just come out at a lower price point.
But that doesn't imply they'd make more money doing that. A persistent theme here on Techdirt is that piracy very seldom represents a lost sale and that certainly squares with my experience. If that's the case then lowering prices or changing release windows or whatever to try to pick those potential customers up is almost certainly a losing proposition.
The best play for the labels/studios, tbh, is probably to continue as they have been for new content and privately accept that a certain amount of non-commercial infringement is going to be an unavoidable consequence of trying to split markets. For older content, they could create a subscription service (or just license it all to Netflix) and turn those properties into a modest but predictable revenue stream for which piracy is almost a non-issue.
People who understand and respect copyrights should be getting Bas's point right away.
When you buy, for example, a CD, you are not buying a collection of songs. You never own the songs. Whoever holds the copyrights for those songs is the one who owns the songs. So when you by a CD you're not buying songs - you're buying the packaging (the CD). You're willing to buy the packaging because it allows you to listen to songs that you like, but you're buying the package NOT the songs.
And then the implication of that point...
Many of you are pointing out that the package really isn't something you value. It's sort of something you put up with to get to the songs. Nobody wants to buy and listen to a blank CD. What you value is the music. Bas is not disagreeing with that.
What's he's trying to say, I think, is that a package that you pay for that just serves to deliver music is an inferior value to a package that you not only don't pay for, but that is also available on demand with no fuss. That's what competing with free means, and there's no distribution model for selling copies of music (the package) that can compete with that from a customer value standpoint.
However, you can use music to make other things people WANT to buy more valuable, and you won't have to worry about non-commercial infringement because the package people are buying is something they actually want, with value added by music they want, too. That's how an artist can make money off of their music without having to compete with free.
I think a lot of you guys are agreeing with his point but balking at the implication.
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Re: Re:
Who does that benefit? No one in the history of ever has said "hey, I was going to buy this single but I just saw this dude's lipdub so forget that noise", but at least some people have decided to check an artist out after watching the dub.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Hate it
Pretty absurd. The authors should be ashamed of themselves unless they got an envelope full of cash for this.
Re: (as DigitalDao)
Well, I'm convinced.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: (as DigitalDao)
(untitled comment) (as DigitalDao)
Why haven't you acknowledged that as a practical matter, to own property requires both the right and the ability to exclude?
Interpretation of Results. (as DigitalDao)
For streaming services they're probably accurate, though.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: (as DigitalDao)
No, that's not his point at all.
Mike's point is that ANYONE can just give it away because it's nonrivalrous and nonexcludable. It's not just that the rightsholder can give away infinite copies, it's that anyone who comes across a copy can also give away infinite copies. Whatever property rights exist in copyrights are as a practical matter unenforcable, so it's plain weird to talk about copyright as property in the way that's commonly understood by non-lawyers and people who don't have asperger's syndrome.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: (as DigitalDao)
Re: (as DigitalDao)
Re: Re: Re: (as DigitalDao)
1) What startups are you talking about? Do you mean hypothetical startups?
2) If a startup is failing because because it's trying to sell something that its prospective customers can already get for free the problem is not that people can get it for free.
(untitled comment) (as DigitalDao)
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: (as DigitalDao)
It's a problem for the companies who used their dominance of the distribution system to reap fat profits off of consumers, but it's a huge improvement for the consumers who now have choices, isn't it?
Re: Entitlement (as DigitalDao)
That's true...but then sellers are entitled to approach other buyers and buyers are entitled to approach other sellers, if they think they can get better terms. That's the way markets work and why markets are efficient.
Infringement is an example of a market seeking efficiency - potential buyers who don't like deal they can get from some distributors go to other distributors who serve their needs better. That's the very definition of how a market should behave, and we should be THANKFUL that people are willing to do it because it provides competition that might cause so-called legitimate providers to improve their offerings.
The framing of the "right or realistic" post is all wrong, imo. The framing should be "Take care of the consumer because otherwise the consumer will take care of himself."
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: (as DigitalDao)
Huh? What's this full cost that you're talking about?
The cost of digital distribution is effectively zero, so there's no variable cost to cover.
And if it cost $10k (for instance) to record a track and you sell 10k digital downloads netting $1 each you've fully recouped all your production costs on the first 10k units sold.
After that you're asking listeners to pay money for content whose production costs have already been paid that costs nothing to copy.
What does "full cost" mean in a context like that?
Re: Re: Re: It's not just the TPP folks (as DigitalDao)
Because he doesn't have a point. The two events are not comparable at all.
Re: Re: (as DigitalDao)
The ACs below both have it right. The studios are being rational, but they should also quit bitching about piracy.
(untitled comment) (as DigitalDao)
If you can control distribution well enough to price discriminate (by generating artificial scarcity) then that is an awesome business model. You can't get much better than that without reading consumers' minds and charging them exactly the maximum they're willing to pay for your products. IMO, the posters pointing out why the labels/studios prefer to play that game aren't wrong.
The problem for the labels/studios is that copying digital goods is so easy that they can't play that game as well as they used to. People can just route around their clumsy attempts at price discrimination (and I cannot stress enough how knowing how they are trying to milk my wallet makes me give not one single fuck about doing this) so the labels/studios lose some sales they could have made had they just come out at a lower price point.
But that doesn't imply they'd make more money doing that. A persistent theme here on Techdirt is that piracy very seldom represents a lost sale and that certainly squares with my experience. If that's the case then lowering prices or changing release windows or whatever to try to pick those potential customers up is almost certainly a losing proposition.
The best play for the labels/studios, tbh, is probably to continue as they have been for new content and privately accept that a certain amount of non-commercial infringement is going to be an unavoidable consequence of trying to split markets. For older content, they could create a subscription service (or just license it all to Netflix) and turn those properties into a modest but predictable revenue stream for which piracy is almost a non-issue.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: I guess he actually ment "Commodity" (as DigitalDao)
Re: Re: Re: Re: I guess he actually ment "Commodity" (as DigitalDao)
Re: Re: I guess he actually ment "Commodity" (as DigitalDao)
When you buy, for example, a CD, you are not buying a collection of songs. You never own the songs. Whoever holds the copyrights for those songs is the one who owns the songs. So when you by a CD you're not buying songs - you're buying the packaging (the CD). You're willing to buy the packaging because it allows you to listen to songs that you like, but you're buying the package NOT the songs.
And then the implication of that point...
Many of you are pointing out that the package really isn't something you value. It's sort of something you put up with to get to the songs. Nobody wants to buy and listen to a blank CD. What you value is the music. Bas is not disagreeing with that.
What's he's trying to say, I think, is that a package that you pay for that just serves to deliver music is an inferior value to a package that you not only don't pay for, but that is also available on demand with no fuss. That's what competing with free means, and there's no distribution model for selling copies of music (the package) that can compete with that from a customer value standpoint.
However, you can use music to make other things people WANT to buy more valuable, and you won't have to worry about non-commercial infringement because the package people are buying is something they actually want, with value added by music they want, too. That's how an artist can make money off of their music without having to compete with free.
I think a lot of you guys are agreeing with his point but balking at the implication.
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