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Home Taping Is Killing Music: When the music industry waged war on the cassette

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Re: Home Taping Is Killing Music: When the music industry waged war on the cassette

#111

Post by zirgs »

cubefox wrote: post #96
zirgs wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Piracy is a service problem. Back in the early 2000s pirates simply offered a better service. The gaming industry understood that and quickly created online marketplaces for games. The music industry didn't - and instead of creating Spotify a decade earlier - spent the 2000s trying to sue grandmas who filmed their kids dancing to copyrighted music.

> Piracy is a service problem. Maybe for two short years until iTunes came out. Then there was no service problem anymore. But CD sales kept collapsing while digital sales were hardly worth noting. Which proves that people loved pirated music because it was free, not because they couldn't buy it. > created online marketplaces for games. The music industry didn't - and instead of creating Spotify a decade earlier - Sp…

iTunes was not available everywhere. It was officially available in Eastern Europe only around 2011/2012. And in many other countries even later. Around the same time as Spotify which was a lot better service.

Before that I could either buy ridiculously overpriced CDs or go to ThePirateBay which was available in my country from day one. So yeah - it absolutely was a service problem.

Soon after Spotify appeared I stopped pirating, because Spotify offered a much better service than piracy sites and brick & mortar stores for a reasonable price.

Re: Home Taping Is Killing Music: When the music industry waged war on the cassette

#112

Post by cubefox »

realusername wrote: post #103
cubefox wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Napster launched in 1999, The Pirate Bay launched in 2003, Spotify only launched internationally in 2010 / 2011. There's been a decade without proper legal options to get music. That's simply false, iTunes launched in 2001.

Yes I know, I specifically avoided to talk about it since it did not really meet the demand at the time. The catalog was too small and DRMs were not removable at the time (until 2009) so it was pretty much useless for an mp3 player. I still give it to iTunes, it was the only legal place to buy music for the longest time even if it was limited. Also the Windows version and the music store only launched in 2003.

Steam DRM (video games) is also not removable. And iTunes music did work on iPods. The main issue was that most people filled their iPods with pirated music instead.

Re: Home Taping Is Killing Music: When the music industry waged war on the cassette

#113

Post by zirgs »

cubefox wrote: post #102
zirgs wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was true in the late 1990s, but by mid-2000s everyone could get fast internet with no data caps. That's when Steam started taking off, but music industry was still stuck in the previous century.

They weren't, iTunes (and other services before that) existed before Steam. The music industry was ahead of the games industry, not the other way round. The difference is that video game DRM (Steam) succeeded, but music DRM didn't.

Steam was available in the Eastern Europe way before iTunes and Spotify. Music and movie industries really dropped the ball there.

Re: Home Taping Is Killing Music: When the music industry waged war on the cassette

#114

Post by realusername »

cubefox wrote: post #112
realusername wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I know, I specifically avoided to talk about it since it did not really meet the demand at the time. The catalog was too small and DRMs were not removable at the time (until 2009) so it was pretty much useless for an mp3 player. I still give it to iTunes, it was the only legal place to buy music for the longest time even if it was limited. Also the Windows version and the music store only launched in 2003.

Steam DRM (video games) is also not removable. And iTunes music did work on iPods. The main issue was that most people filled their iPods with pirated music instead.

But Steam games do work straight away on your computer, iTunes DRM music did not work on your average mp3 player everybody had. It's not like you could do something about it, it just refused to play it, I know, I had one.

And if you're asking customers to pay money to get the legal music and then download a DRM removal software from some Russian website to be able to listen to it (that might existed at the time, I don't remember), well that's even more hassle than piracy.

Even Apple themselves noticed the problem but a little too late, by then Spotify was already starting to spread.

Re: Home Taping Is Killing Music: When the music industry waged war on the cassette

#115

Post by realusername »

cubefox wrote: post #94
zirgs wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, before spotify they made zero money from me and a lot of other people. Spotify also allowed a lot more people to publish their music. Increased supply and higher competition leads to lower prices. 1999 with its overpriced CDs is never coming back.

> Increased supply and higher competition leads to lower prices. The "supply" of music, including music sold on CDs, is equally unlimited. What leads to the low Spotify price is that they have to compete with music piracy. CD prices weren't higher because CDs were expensive to manufacture and therefore limited in supply -- they weren't. Instead, they were more expensive because they didn't have to compete against pir…

You had more piracy during the CD era than anything you can imagine right now. Basically every town had a pirated CD shop, everybody knew somebody to call to get some pirated CDs, it was a full business.

Re: Home Taping Is Killing Music: When the music industry waged war on the cassette

#116

Post by rini17 »

cubefox wrote: post #107
jacquesm wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You just didn't provide any argument that piracy didn't cause the observed collapse of the music industry.

You just didn't provide any argument that piracy did cause the observed collapse of the music industry. You believe the business model based on selling overpriced media and feeding most of it into advertising instead of paying artists, was sustainable?

Re: Home Taping Is Killing Music: When the music industry waged war on the cassette

#117

Post by seba_dos1 »

cubefox wrote: post #109
seba_dos1 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About a decade ago there used to be a site in the Polish internet called "Strata Kazika" (Kazik's Loss). At that time Kazik was one of the most vocal anti-piracy artists who equaled copying to stealing. So the site's shtick was to take Kazik's newest album and copy it. Then delete to make place for another copy. In a loop. The site then counted how much money has been already stolen from Kazik in the process, and you…

> About a decade ago there used to be a site in the Polish internet called "Strata Kazika" (Kazik's Loss). At that time Kazik was one of the most vocal anti-piracy artists who equaled copying to stealing. This is highly irrelevant. I didn't say anything about stealing. The actual music revenue collapsed starting from 1999. Due to pure magic apparently!

Of course industry's revenue will collapse when you steal billions from them, duh. After all, we all know there's no other rational reason for these profits to plummet than piracy... It's not like people's habits and technology has significantly changed around that time.

Re: Home Taping Is Killing Music: When the music industry waged war on the cassette

#118

Post by Karunamon »

cubefox wrote: post #107
jacquesm wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You just didn't provide any argument that piracy didn't cause the observed collapse of the music industry.

That's not how it works. You didn't provide any kind of proof that it did.

Re: Home Taping Is Killing Music: When the music industry waged war on the cassette

#119

Post by [deleted] »

justsomehnguy wrote: post #95
cubefox wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oh poor, poor Sony/BMG/EMI CEOs who absolutely couldn't buy another yacht while lowering their expenses by literally making money out of thin air by literally copying digital music. /me wets a handkerchief with the tears of compassion. You are conveniently ignoring the musicians which are hardest hit by our piracy. They make hardly any money from Spotify. > You would see what by 2017 the revenue is on par with 1981…

[flagged]

[deleted]

Re: Home Taping Is Killing Music: When the music industry waged war on the cassette

#120

Post by zirgs »

cubefox wrote: post #94
zirgs wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, before spotify they made zero money from me and a lot of other people. Spotify also allowed a lot more people to publish their music. Increased supply and higher competition leads to lower prices. 1999 with its overpriced CDs is never coming back.

> Increased supply and higher competition leads to lower prices. The "supply" of music, including music sold on CDs, is equally unlimited. What leads to the low Spotify price is that they have to compete with music piracy. CD prices weren't higher because CDs were expensive to manufacture and therefore limited in supply -- they weren't. Instead, they were more expensive because they didn't have to compete against pir…

By "increased supply" I meant - more artists were able to offer their music on the service. So each artist has a way bigger competition now. It was much harder to release a CD or get your songs on radio than get on spotify, bandcamp and youtube.
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