Will SOPA or PIPA Kill the internet Or CSR?

Red Stripe said:
The vote has been suspended...

The anti-SOPA Day of Protest ripples continue to spread. On Friday morning, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) put the brakes on a PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) cloture vote. The vote was originally scheduled for Tuesday, Jan. 24.“In light of recent events, I have decided to postpone Tuesday’s vote on the PROTECT IP Act,” said Reid in a statement Friday morning.
Click to expand...

...But I heard the movie industry trotted out Arnold to say "I'll be back"...
 
Turtlesboat said:
Dominated by groups that I grew up listening to. Pink and Beyonce? That's the new generations contribution to music.
Click to expand...

It is amazing the number of T-shirts sporting Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, etc. I've seen on teenagers recently. The WSJ had an article on tours, a couple of years ago, and it indicated; it took 5 acts in the hip-hop and rap genre to fill even modest arenas. MM
 
Touring is where the money is at right now, which is totally the opposite of the way it used to be. It used to be touring was a way of promoting the album, and they generally lost money on the tour but the label would subsidize it because it sold CD's. NOW touring is the way the big acts make money and they release songs to support the tour. Do you know why this shift happened? pirating. You can't pirate a live show. For years and years labels signed acts that never needed to tour, they had MTV, Radio to promote the CD's so there was a whole generation of groups that couldn't play live. Which is why you don't see any groups from say 10 years ago on that list. It's only now that you're beginning to see current artists start to hit big numbers on tours.
 
IS pirating the cause, or has the industry just evolved? The way music is purchased now is so different from when we were kids. You used to buy a 45 rpm vinyl single with cover art for 99 cents.

25 years later, a single is still 99 cents! BUT there's no materials (machinery, cardboard, cellophane, vinyl), no shipping, no retailers, etc. What the hell can you buy today that costs the same as it did in 1985? Should they charge more for a single download (yes, I know some are $1.29 or $1.49)?? I have no clue. But I'd imagine they can still make a decent profit on that 99 cent download, OR it's viewed as "advertising" for the artist, and, as such, becomes a "cost of doing business."

Anyone remember what the first VCR cost back in the early 1980s? I remember my Dad finally succumbed and bought a Panasonic 4 head stereo 2 week 8 event programmable VCR in 1984 for over $800!!! In 1984, $800!!! 15 years later, you could buy a more advanced model for $89. Was Panasonic being driven to the brink of bankruptcy b/c of the drop in selling price? Of course not. The technology evolved, production was streamlined, they recovered their development costs and newer and better ways to watch video at home emerged. Capitalism took over and everyone still made money.

I do think pirating is a contributing factor but no way is it THE sole cause of the devolution of record sales. If video killed the radio star, then legal technology killed the "record album."
 
Turtlesboat said:
Touring is where the money is at right now, which is totally the opposite of the way it used to be. It used to be touring was a way of promoting the album, and they generally lost money on the tour but the label would subsidize it because it sold CD's. NOW touring is the way the big acts make money and they release songs to support the tour. Do you know why this shift happened? pirating. You can't pirate a live show. For years and years labels signed acts that never needed to tour, they had MTV, Radio to promote the CD's so there was a whole generation of groups that couldn't play live. Which is why you don't see any groups from say 10 years ago on that list. It's only now that you're beginning to see current artists start to hit big numbers on tours.
Click to expand...

Interesting take.

I also think that while Itunes has sold a lot of songs for a buck, it is just that "songs", not near the gross money of an album. I know we have had singles for a long time but in the old days you at least were exposed to a B side, now just the one popular song is sold or heard. I am still finding gems in old albums I have had for years as well as being aquainted with 30 year old stuff I never even heard back in the day through Pandora.

DEFINITION: Album; a collection of music, for any thinking I meant LP's.

I have heard many young cutting edge rockers are also pressing a few thousand LP's for their audio freak fans. MM
 
rondds said:
IS pirating the cause, or has the industry just evolved? The way music is purchased now is so different from when we were kids. You used to buy a 45 rpm vinyl single with cover art for 99 cents.

25 years later, a single is still 99 cents! BUT there's no materials (machinery, cardboard, cellophane, vinyl), no shipping, no retailers, etc. What the hell can you buy today that costs the same as it did in 1985? Should they charge more for a single download (yes, I know some are $1.29 or $1.49)?? I have no clue. But I'd imagine they can still make a decent profit on that 99 cent download, OR it's viewed as "advertising" for the artist, and, as such, becomes a "cost of doing business."

Anyone remember what the first VCR cost back in the early 1980s? I remember my Dad finally succumbed and bought a Panasonic 4 head stereo 2 week 8 event programmable VCR in 1984 for over $800!!! In 1984, $800!!! 15 years later, you could buy a more advanced model for $89. Was Panasonic being driven to the brink of bankruptcy b/c of the drop in selling price? Of course not. The technology evolved, production was streamlined, they recovered their development costs and newer and better ways to watch video at home emerged. Capitalism took over and everyone still made money.

I do think pirating is a contributing factor but no way is it THE sole cause of the devolution of record sales. If video killed the radio star, then legal technology killed the "record album."
Click to expand...

it is the factor. The first wave was CD's from China. Then downloads. The cost of doing a run of CD's is huge for an artist, The next day bootlegs will be on the street for a buck and will be online the same day for free. makes no sense really. Vinyl sales are soaring, up 39% last year... why? The cost of bootlegging a vinyl record is way too high so artists are turning to this. A buck is a Buck to kids and if they can get it free, they will. So right now, in the artists mind, recording songs is a promotional tool for their tours and t-shirts. They use it to boost their fan base, they rarely sell enough to even come close to breaking even on costs. Only the Big Big stars pull in enough sales to make money. The exception are artists with an old fan base that don't know how to download or still listen to CD's. Technology allows artists to make records much cheaper than it used to be, that's why the cost of a single has remained unchanged. But if you want to be an artist as a career, you have to sell your music for money, otherwise it's a hobby. And you don't get very good hobby artists. The shift will happen when someone develops something that people want to buy into. It has to be so amazing and so ridiculously expensive to bootleg initially that it starts a wave.

perfect example is the iphone. 7 years ago if someone asked you if you would plunk down $500 for a cell phone you would have laughed. They were giving them away for free, if you wanted the top of the line you would plunk down like $50. Who in their right mind would go into the phone industry knowing that no one was willing to pay for a phone. The phone company would pay for the phone and hand it to you. Then along came apple with a phone that was so amazing that people lost their minds and started buying them at unheard of prices. Complete game changer. You can't bootleg an iphone, sure you can make something look the same, but you can't have the same experience, you need the whole package, the software, the apps, the service, and that can't be bootlegged. same thing will happen in the music industry. But first, we need to put laws in place that will protect someone from people stealing it. Apple would never have put the time and money into developing such a device unless there were laws in place to protect them.
 
Last edited:
Turtlesboat said:
it is the factor. The first wave was CD's from China. Then downloads. The cost of doing a run of CD's is huge for an artist, The next day bootlegs will be on the street for a buck and will be online the same day for free. makes no sense really. Vinyl sales are soaring, up 39% last year... why? The cost of bootlegging a vinyl record is way too high so artists are turning to this. A buck is a Buck to kids and if they can get it free, they will. So right now, in the artists mind, recording songs is a promotional tool for their tours and t-shirts. They use it to boost their fan base, they rarely sell enough to even come close to breaking even on costs. Only the Big Big stars pull in enough sales to make money. The exception are artists with an old fan base that don't know how to download or still listen to CD's. Technology allows artists to make records much cheaper than it used to be, that's why the cost of a single has remained unchanged. But if you want to be an artist as a career, you have to sell your music for money, otherwise it's a hobby. And you don't get very good hobby artists. The shift will happen when someone develops something that people want to buy into. It has to be so amazing and so ridiculously expensive to bootleg initially that it starts a wave.

perfect example is the iphone. 7 years ago if someone asked you if you would plunk down $500 for a cell phone you would have laughed. They were giving them away for free, if you wanted the top of the line you would plunk down like $50. Who in their right mind would go into the phone industry knowing that no one was willing to pay for a phone. The phone company would pay for the phone and hand it to you. Then along came apple with a phone that was so amazing that people lost their minds and started buying them at unheard of prices. Complete game changer. You can't bootleg an iphone, sure you can make something look the same, but you can't have the same experience, you need the whole package, the software, the apps, the service, and that can't be bootlegged. same thing will happen in the music industry. But first, we need to put laws in place that will protect someone from people stealing it. Apple would never have put the time and money into developing such a device unless there were laws in place to protect them.
Click to expand...

I have said for several years that if one wanted to be the worlds first trillionaire all that must be done is to develop 'the" music delivery system that consumers and artists were happy with. That's all! Then sell the patent to the movie industry for good measure. MM
 
When the cost of pirating music, movies or designer watches exceeds the return. OR
When the punishment and chance of getting caught are life changing. Then and only then will it stop.

So, to reach the end we will need to rely on the industry to come up with the technology to prevent it. OR
The government will need to grow some balz & make stealing the serious crime that it really is. NOT just pass a law that says you shouldn't do it. Hell, if you called your local FBI office & told them Hey, I just downloaded 100 free songs onto my phone, they'd say You really should not do that, its against the law..... Have a nice day.

I'm hoping/guessing that in the next few years it will be a combination of the two. This is unfortunate first because it won't work very well. Second because the government will piss away 10 times the amount of money that it will rescue for the industry. Fortunately, (at least I believe), that in 10 years a technological solution will arise.
 
The last sentence is the Key, they have to have a way to protect it.
 
Good find Turtle. This is really starting to piss me off.

..."served two years’ probation for breaking into Pentagon computers and observing real-time satellite photos of Saddam Hussein’s palaces during the first Gulf war."

Two years probation? Really? This guy should be dead. If he gets two years probation for his pentagon activities, what is the penalty for stealing music? Nothing thats what. This helps make my point that our government has lost its manhood. We have 1000's of laws where the penalty is.... well, nothing, no penalty. How can we believe that the FBI can or even wants to put a stop to piracy.
 
MonacoMike said:
Another will spring up in it's place like weeds in a garden.
Click to expand...

Not in New Zealand.

Apparently internet Piracy is quite lucrative. You see that mansion? Wonder what they are going to do with all of that seized money...

chriscomansion.jpg
 
Last edited:
rondds said:
25 years later, a single is still 99 cents! BUT there's no materials (machinery, cardboard, cellophane, vinyl), no shipping, no retailers, etc. What the hell can you buy today that costs the same as it did in 1985? Should they charge more for a single download (yes, I know some are $1.29 or $1.49)?? I have no clue. But I'd imagine they can still make a decent profit on that 99 cent download, OR it's viewed as "advertising" for the artist, and, as such, becomes a "cost of doing business."

Anyone remember what the first VCR cost back in the early 1980s? I remember my Dad finally succumbed and bought a Panasonic 4 head stereo 2 week 8 event programmable VCR in 1984 for over $800!!! In 1984, $800!!! 15 years later, you could buy a more advanced model for $89. Was Panasonic being driven to the brink of bankruptcy b/c of the drop in selling price? Of course not. The technology evolved, production was streamlined, they recovered their development costs and newer and better ways to watch video at home emerged. Capitalism took over and everyone still made money.

I do think pirating is a contributing factor but no way is it THE sole cause of the devolution of record sales. If video killed the radio star, then legal technology killed the "record album."
Click to expand...

I gotta agree with Ron on this one.

I lost interest in buying "new" albums when the "new technology" CD's which came out at $13.99 started selling for $15.99. Why would a product like that go up in price?

I think half the issue is pricing. The music industry started pricing themselves out of the market. People can layout $0.99 for single download without too much thought. Raise the price to $2.50 -> and I bet your *gross* revenue will drop. Same deal with MS Office. Back when the software was $699, I wouldn't even consider buying that software. Now, at $100 for a 3-pack license -> I have no problem buying every few years.


- - - - -

$89 for a VCR? Really? Can you even BUY a proper VCR these days? For $89, you are getting a Blue Ray player.
 
You know why a product like a CD goes up in price? it's a petroleum product, the EPA also made plants jump through a billion hoops, the cost of paper and packaging shot through the roof. It costs far far more to make a CD today than 20 years ago.

It's far cheaper to make an artist than to buy and artist. So they started making them, as they got expensive, they would drop them and make another. They could take someone that couldn't sing and make them sound OK. Hire producers to crank out the songs, slap some autotune on and there you go. Then all the labels started doing that. Then everything started to sound the same, because they were all hiring the same dudes to crank out the music. So now we have a ton of artists that aren't really artists all sounding alike. Everyone kind of just went ehhh, i'm not going to buy 80 minutes of filler music for the couple of ok songs on the CD. Right at the same time Napster came on the scene and it was like a perfect storm. It hit so fast and so hard the labels were in total denial. By the time they realized that it was showing up on their bottom line, it was over. The momentum was HUGE and they kept feeding it by finding cheaper and cheaper talent, spending less and less on making a record which just made people not want to drop that kind of coin on a whole CD which drove them to grab that 1 or two songs off a download site.

It all came to an end (yes, the music industry closed it's doors) on 9/11/01. When the towers came down and the corporations that owned the labels, (sony, panasonic, siemens) had a meeting with the bean counters, they added up the numbers and decided the music division was not going to make money in the near future and closed them down. just like that. Thousands and thousands of people got handed their pink slips before the year was done. Artists were dropped, and offices closed. The only ones that retained their jobs were the guys licensing music to movies and commercials, the few mega artists that were still profitable, and a few people to A&R and market them. Everyone else, empty your desks and leave the keys on the table.
 
Last edited:
Turtlesboat said:
Not in New Zealand.

Apparently internet Piracy is quite lucrative. You see that mansion? Wonder what they are going to do with all of that seized money...

chriscomansion.jpg
Click to expand...

I told you to stop posting pictures of my house on the Internet.
 
Turtlesboat said:
Not in New Zealand.

Apparently internet Piracy is quite lucrative. You see that mansion? Wonder what they are going to do with all of that seized money...

chriscomansion.jpg
Click to expand...

Wow, that's impressive! So how does one start a "Locker" company? :grin:
 
I don't buy the "cd's" are expensive line. Isn't full retail around $10 a hundred?

The rest of the post, however, rings true to me.
 
No, not even close. depending on the print and packaging, they run anywhere from $.90-$2.00 per disc. That doesn't include shipping. They then go to a distributor who ships them all over the world selling them wholesale to stores for about $7/disc give or take. it was the retailers who raised the prices to cover their increasing expenses. You have to remember this was during the time when real estate prices where going through the roof and leases cost money. The labels would also pay for shelf space in the record stores. You remember when you used to walk into a record store and there were displays of new releases etc... those spots were paid for and it wasn't cheap. Labels also had to cover the cost of returns or defective runs. A lot of times they had to buy back unsold discs at a certain price. You add all that up and you can see why they cost what they cost.

On top of that, artists would get 12 points on a record (generally). out of those 12 points, they would have to pay for their entire project. Think about that for a moment and let it sink in. they would get 12% of wholesale and have to pay for everything EVERYTHING out of that before they made any money. The entire cost of making the record, lawyers, managers, studios, fedex, shipping, returns, promotion, radio, tours, flights, the list is endless. Most of us only see the 1% that actually turn a profit, the other 99% never turn a profit and rely and the 1% to fund them. Kind of like the real world. Anyway, so buy it or don't it's up to you. those are the facts.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Forum statistics

Threads
113,118
Messages
1,426,467
Members
61,033
Latest member
SeaMonster8
Back
Top