Neil Young is right — piracy is the new radio
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Re: Neil Young is right — piracy is the new radio
#2It is so true. Just as a busker would play music for anyone, and gets an appreciative tip once in a while, pre-recorded music can be seen as a leveraged way of busking.
In some way, the record industry is doing piracy a service by increasing the perceived value of music. Too bad they don't get a cut for doing that.
Re: Neil Young is right — piracy is the new radio
#3A very apt analogy indeed. +1 for Neil Young.
Re: Neil Young is right — piracy is the new radio
#4Can you really equate piracy to radio when you can listen to what you want on-demand? This is a big difference from radio and services like Pandora which don't allow you to listen to exactly what you want when you want.
Re: Neil Young is right — piracy is the new radio
#5Can you really equate piracy to radio when you can listen to what you want on-demand? This is a big difference from radio and services like Pandora which don't allow you to listen to exactly what you want when you want.
So the challenge is 'listen to what you want' versus 'discover new music'.
People will listen to something for 'free' even if they aren't sure they will like it, but they won't pay any money for something that they don't know whether or not they will like it.
Radio was a way to introduce new music, but with an iPod/iPhone/mp3 player people can carry around days of music that they already know they like, and it has no annoying adverts in it, so they don't listen to the radio any more. Thus a source of discovery is cut off from them.
'Pirates', listening to music and then giving a copy to a friend who they think might like it, allows new music to be discovered. That seeding is required for artists to develop a following. Pandora does similar seeding, but like radio injects advertisements which are annoying to many.
Re: Neil Young is right — piracy is the new radio
#6We have come to accept a vast panoply of behaviors of sharing creative works and of allowing people to "consume" music, art, movies, etc. without directly compensating the creators. Radio, television, libraries, used books, etc. We accept such things largely because we've grown used to them. We have lived long enough in an era of libraries and radio to understand that they do not destroy the ability of artists to make a living.
Uncompensated sharing in the digital age has been unmoored from some of the traditional limits on sharing, moving it well outside the comfort zone for a lot of people and causing a lot of backlash against the phenomenon. But even though the returns on uncompensated sharing in the digital age are sometimes more diffuse and indirect than for the more traditional forms of sharing we are used to they still exist. Art will survive. Artists will not end up in the poor house. And eventually people will grow as used to what gets labelled "piracy" today as they have to libraries, museums, and radio.
Re: Neil Young is right — piracy is the new radio
#7Interestingly enough, he defends record companies as well here. He's in a very compromise position:
http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2012/01/31/neil-young-defends...
Re: Neil Young is right — piracy is the new radio
#8Can you really equate piracy to radio when you can listen to what you want on-demand? This is a big difference from radio and services like Pandora which don't allow you to listen to exactly what you want when you want.
The difference is that with piracy, there is a chance you'll stumble upon something new. With the radio, you're stuck with the same handful of songs over and over and over again.
But seriously, I have always wondered how the radio model is supposed to work. Whenever I hear a song I like, just wait an hour, and I'll hear it again. There is simply no reason to buy the CD (or record, or digital download).
Value is, in part, driven by scarcity. When you only have 40 songs in your rotation, there is no longer that scarcity required to drive the high value. It's no wonder people were no longer willing to pay $20 for a CD.
Re: Neil Young is right — piracy is the new radio
#9Can you really equate piracy to radio when you can listen to what you want on-demand? This is a big difference from radio and services like Pandora which don't allow you to listen to exactly what you want when you want.
The difference is that with piracy, there is a chance you'll stumble upon something new. With the radio, you're stuck with the same handful of songs over and over and over again. But seriously, I have always wondered how the radio model is supposed to work. Whenever I hear a song I like, just wait an hour, and I'll hear it again. There is simply no reason to buy the CD (or record, or digital download). Value is, in p…
The radio model was not geared to you (as far as I can tell). Up to the 90s, lots of people who heard a song a dozen times on the radio would then go and by the single or album. Even at $8 and $20. I don't know why they did, but they did.
I suspect the big problem with piracy (from RIAA perspective) is that it is teaching those people that its just as easy to get it online. Except that iTunes went and made it even easier to get it for $1, so most people in that market I know just buy it on iTunes.
Re: Neil Young is right — piracy is the new radio
#10Can you really equate piracy to radio when you can listen to what you want on-demand? This is a big difference from radio and services like Pandora which don't allow you to listen to exactly what you want when you want.
Are they really so different?
The radio plays songs interspersed with commercials that thousands of people hear and a handful of those folks are influenced to go buy cars or soap or deodorant or fast food from the advertisements they heard (thus effectively paying the advertisers, thus compensating them for the advertisements, thus providing the radio station with revenue to pay the license fees which get paid to music studios and eventually to musicians). Is that really so very much better or more ethical than millions of individuals listening to music through file sharing and a handful of those folks being influenced to buy albums, go to concerts, purchase t-shirts and other merchandise which directly benefits the artists?
Edit: to add an additional punch to this: how is it that advertisements can be so enormously compelling that they can sustain 4 levels of profit margin (for the company selling the products, for the ad agency, for the radio station, for the music studios) yet the music itself is not sufficiently compelling to support even one level? The answer is that it is. The licensing fees are a token, the ads support the operations of the radio station, the music supports itself. Take away the technological need for a radio station and...