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Pandora: Giant of Internet Radio Nears Its 'Last Stand'

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Re: Pandora: Giant of Internet Radio Nears Its 'Last Stand'

#51

Post by jamesbritt »

tptacek wrote: post #35
jamesbritt wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...should be able to set price caps on artwork owned by corporations" Because copyright protection is not a right, but a limited privilege granted by the United States Constitution and intended to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts", not to make a sure $ for some corporation. Hence the idea of compulsory licensing, for example. If the cost of the license, though, is prohibitive, it has the same effect…

The "limit" on copyright is duration. The market owns price. You haven't answered my question.

"The "limit" on copyright is duration. The market owns price. You haven't answered my question."

Yes, I did. See the other comments on compulsory licensing as being state-sanctioned price limit, if my own answer was not clear enough.

Also, a reasonable counter-question is, what gives someone the right to prevent me from making a copy of a digital entity?

Intellectual "property" is quite different from physical goods, and the fact that the Constitution has a special clause for copyright suggests that IP was not meant to be equated with, say, land or other material things.

Perhaps copying is the real right, with government offering to restrict that right for a period of time so as to offer incentives to people to make their creations public.

Re: Pandora: Giant of Internet Radio Nears Its 'Last Stand'

#52

Post by netcan »

indiejade wrote: post #44
sabat wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what you read, but traditional radio does not pay fees to the record industry. Zero. They do pay ASCAP/BMI fees, however. Those are just for the performance, and the artists actually do tend to get the money from that. (That's as opposed to the money the RIAA gets from CD sales, etc., which the artists almost never see.)

Conversely, radio stations are often paid by major labels to repeatedly play/promote certain artists. If you've ever listened to a "popular" music station and wondered why certain songs seem to get played again and again -- sometimes as much as every hour -- that's why. There's actually some kind of psychology thing involved; the more times a person hears a song, the more likely that person is to end up liking it. Th…

An irony of this kind of business is that if someone isn't going to buy, it's still to the benefit of the vendor if she has it. The only issue is that it's almost impossible to distinguish between a give-away that cannibalises a sale & one that does not.

Presumably, terrestrial radio is not seen as a potential replacement for CDs while internet/satellite is. It's all rubbish of course.

In a way, 'stars' might be a lot worse off without piracy. Consumers might be drawn to free music given away by weird artists (Radiohead, NIN). Presumably a lot of those would be artists with 0 sales & nothing to cannibalise.

Take, software as an analogy. How many users of pirated MS Office would otherwise use Open Office? In the south, these might have become the standard if not for piracy.

Re: Pandora: Giant of Internet Radio Nears Its 'Last Stand'

#53

Post by madhatter3 »

indiejade wrote: post #44
sabat wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what you read, but traditional radio does not pay fees to the record industry. Zero. They do pay ASCAP/BMI fees, however. Those are just for the performance, and the artists actually do tend to get the money from that. (That's as opposed to the money the RIAA gets from CD sales, etc., which the artists almost never see.)

Conversely, radio stations are often paid by major labels to repeatedly play/promote certain artists. If you've ever listened to a "popular" music station and wondered why certain songs seem to get played again and again -- sometimes as much as every hour -- that's why. There's actually some kind of psychology thing involved; the more times a person hears a song, the more likely that person is to end up liking it. Th…

What you are describing is called Payola and it's illegal.

Re: Pandora: Giant of Internet Radio Nears Its 'Last Stand'

#55

Post by sabat »

madhatter3 wrote: post #53
indiejade wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conversely, radio stations are often paid by major labels to repeatedly play/promote certain artists. If you've ever listened to a "popular" music station and wondered why certain songs seem to get played again and again -- sometimes as much as every hour -- that's why. There's actually some kind of psychology thing involved; the more times a person hears a song, the more likely that person is to end up liking it. Th…

What you are describing is called Payola and it's illegal.

It's certainly illegal, but it goes on all the time. Sometimes they get caught.

Re: Pandora: Giant of Internet Radio Nears Its 'Last Stand'

#56

Post by sabat »

tptacek wrote: post #49
sabat wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Besides the fact that there is no provision in the US constitution for treating ideas as property, it's wrong because webcasters are being treated wildly unfairly than other outlets. There is only one reason for this: the RIAA is afraid of them and wants to drive them out of business. That's actually illegal. And wrong.

A WMG-owned production of Mylie Cyrus singing "7 Things" is not simply an "idea". That's a straw-man argument.

Whatever you want to call it -- I use the word idea -- a song is certainly not a tangible thing. (If you can hand me a song, I'll recant. No, not that, that's sheet music, not the song itself. No, not that CD, that's a copy of the recording of the song.)

The constitution says -- I'm paraphrasing -- that 1) congress can't make laws that limit the freedom of expression (including my ability to use someone else's work to express myself), and 2) that the exception to that is for artists, who are granted a monopoly on their own work for a limited time, to encourage them to make more art.

There is NO provision for "owning" a song. And the 1st amendment trumps any law that says you can.

BTW I think you ought to look up what the straw-man argument, because I don't think it means what you think it does.

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