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NPR Intern Gets an Earful After Blogging About 11,000 Songs

mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com

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Re: NPR Intern Gets an Earful After Blogging About 11,000 Songs

#21

Post by JoshTriplett »

tptacek wrote: post #7

Oh, boy, these threads are going to be a whole bucket of fun. 200-odd commenters competing to see who can most stridently express opposition to the copyright/royalty/license business model of mainstream music, and 5 of us getting yelled at for suggesting that maybe private businesses should be able to pick their own business models, even if they're completely idiotic, and that everyone has the right to simply not buy…

You forgot the half-dozen people making meta-complaints about the views they'd like to see expressed on HN and the views they'd like to see silenced. :)

Re: NPR Intern Gets an Earful After Blogging About 11,000 Songs

#22

Post by pdeuchler »

Put morality aside for a second.

The market has clearly dictated they will not support the business practices of the major record labels, and have instead resorted to alternate ways of obtaining their music. The record labels must adapt, or they will fall[1]. Econ 101. You can debate morality until the cows come home, but that's not going to change these simple facts.

[1]Ignoring possible government interference

Re: NPR Intern Gets an Earful After Blogging About 11,000 Songs

#23

Post by kiba »

tptacek wrote: post #7

Oh, boy, these threads are going to be a whole bucket of fun. 200-odd commenters competing to see who can most stridently express opposition to the copyright/royalty/license business model of mainstream music, and 5 of us getting yelled at for suggesting that maybe private businesses should be able to pick their own business models, even if they're completely idiotic, and that everyone has the right to simply not buy…

Nation-states have the right to pick completely idiotic policies(even if the consequence are horrific) and we citizens have the right to move with our feet(Not so easy with immigration laws)?

In truth, I am kinda bored by these debate. They repeat themselves ad nauseam every time we have them. I wish we see new arguments for a change.

Re: NPR Intern Gets an Earful After Blogging About 11,000 Songs

#24

Post by Codhisattva »

route66 wrote: post #8
ctrlfrk wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but songs are 99c on iTunes? Is it reasonable to expect a 20 year old intern to drop almost $11,000 on songs? It would seem being a music lover is an expensive hobby.

I'm in tears. Is it reasonable to expect a 20 year old intern to have these 11000 songs? Does her life depend on it? What about other things which are unreasonable expensive for a 20 year old intern? The laptop to store the music on, external hard drive, smartphone with data plan to download and so on ... ? This one has some background on numbers. And myths about royalties: http://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/2012/06…

And a great simple info graphic about royalties http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how-much-do-music...

Re: NPR Intern Gets an Earful After Blogging About 11,000 Songs

#25

Post by tptacek »

Codhisattva wrote: post #20

For a much better post than the skimpy NYT rehash see : http://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/letter-to-emi...

David Lowery (the former lead singer of Cracker [of "Low" fame from the early '90s] and Camper Van Beethoven [of "Take The Skinheads Bowling" fame from the '80s), the guy who wrote the page at the link you posted, took up this issue a few months ago to great effect, complete with numbers, and we kind of discussed it then a little:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3850935

Re: NPR Intern Gets an Earful After Blogging About 11,000 Songs

#26

Post by Codhisattva »

objclxt wrote: post #12
zheng wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's my issues with this line of thought. For one, why is 99c considered "reasonable" for a song? I feel as though this price point has little to do with the economics of the song-making business and a lot to do with the economics of iTunes/etc. Secondly, what is "convenient"? Why is iTunes downloading convenient, but watching GoT on HBO's online service not? I'm not saying they are equal, I think iTunes is easier,…

It's very difficult to do 'micropayments' on a credit-card based architecture - card fees are usually a percentage + flat rate cost (say 2% and the first 20 cents of any transactions). Because of this flat fee anything below around 99 cents quickly becomes unprofitable to sell. It's why companies that do microtransactions do so with other payment methods, like alternative currency (FB credits, etc). Of course, you ca…

iTunes store shows that it's no longer difficult once you have a critical mass of business.

Not something in reach for indies, but Dwolla is changing that.

Side note: Spotify is horrible for musicians.

Re: NPR Intern Gets an Earful After Blogging About 11,000 Songs

#27

Post by tptacek »

pdeuchler wrote: post #22

Put morality aside for a second. The market has clearly dictated they will not support the business practices of the major record labels, and have instead resorted to alternate ways of obtaining their music. The record labels must adapt, or they will fall[1]. Econ 101. You can debate morality until the cows come home, but that's not going to change these simple facts. [1]Ignoring possible government interference

It's not "the market" when the new channel is based on ignoring contacts and copyrights, any more than it's "the market" that would be acting if I went to my local library, scanned all the books, and then resold them at "Bookio.com".

Re: NPR Intern Gets an Earful After Blogging About 11,000 Songs

#28

Post by earbitscom »

pdeuchler wrote: post #22

Put morality aside for a second. The market has clearly dictated they will not support the business practices of the major record labels, and have instead resorted to alternate ways of obtaining their music. The record labels must adapt, or they will fall[1]. Econ 101. You can debate morality until the cows come home, but that's not going to change these simple facts. [1]Ignoring possible government interference

While adaptation might be necessary, to say debating this topic can't change the future is inaccurate. I have this debate with plenty of people, and I know at least a few who have changed their behavior as a result. Educating people about the consequences of their actions is important, even when it seems like it has little impact.

Re: NPR Intern Gets an Earful After Blogging About 11,000 Songs

#29

Post by andreasvc »

ghshephard wrote: post #3
rhizome wrote: post #2

Once again, killing (or at least assaulting) the messenger.

I don't actually see it that way. Admittedly, there is always some gray area when it comes to Intellectual Property, but, in this case, the intern's behavior was just disgraceful. Stealing is stealing. Ever since reasonably priced alternatives (iTunes and Amazon) of non-drm content in flexible packaging (per song purchasing) became available - music listeners have no excuse for stealing music. I.E. This might have be…

Copying is not stealing. As said in the article, the files were not obtained by illegal means, just passed around, so I think your "disgraceful" is too strong.

Re: NPR Intern Gets an Earful After Blogging About 11,000 Songs

#30

Post by _delirium »

maxko87 wrote: post #10

Just curious, how does she have 15gb of "legally downloaded" music that she didn't pay for?

I assume she means that she didn't download it, but copied from a friend or similar. And, the law is a bit inconsistent on whether that's legal, since it depends strangely enough on what technology you use to do the copying, which may be leading to some confusion.

Copying music on analog media for personal use from a friend is fair use, under the Audio Home Recording Act; in return, the music industry gets a kickback from every blank tape sold to compensate them. However, the AHRA does not apply (in either the fair-use or kickback portions) to copying music from a friend for personal use onto your iPod. It's not clear very many people who aren't specialists understand that home-taping is legal but home-iPodding isn't...

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