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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

#31

Post by briandear »

ctrlfrk wrote: post #5
ghshephard wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

Is it reasonable that she has actually listened to all of those songs? That's about 733 hours of music. Assuming she listened 2 hours a day and never repeated a song, she'd be listening for over a year before she heard all of those songs. And you know she has Modest Mouse and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs on repeat.

This girl is a thief, plain and simple. It's like walking into a Starbucks and just stealing coffee. The marginal cost of a cup of coffee is just pennies, however there are fixed costs involved. If you don't like Starbucks or think they're corrupt or whatever, no one is forcing you to consume their product. If you don't like Universal Records, then don't support their product.

Musicians must buy equipment and play, usually for years making next to nothing, playing in ratty bars for shitty owners and when they finally do get an album released, they certainly deserve to get paid -- the record companies deserve to get paid as well. For every hit song, they've blown countless dollars supporting musicians that never accomplish anything.

This anti-corporate argument is the argument of a cheapskate thief. There are plenty of Indie labels on iTunes that operate on shoestrings, yet people steal their music too.

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

#32

Post by te_chris »

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…

They still don't offer lossless, so there's one rationale right there.

While it's oh so easy to claim a moral high ground on this there are still things in the market which could be easily offered (ALAC downloads in the iTunes store, for example) but aren't. As such, I use spotify premium for day to day, but if I'm buying music, it's lossless or nothing. I'm not paying the same price for a CD for a worse experience. That is not value.

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

#33

Post by tptacek »

zheng wrote: post #6
ghshephard wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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,…

Why do you get to demand a third choice, besides "Pay 99 Cents" and "Don't Get The Song"?

A small bag of M&Ms costs, I don't know, 79 cents? Why is 79 cents considered reasonable for 29 peanut M&Ms? If I object to that price, and instead pony up the marginal cost of those M&Ms and their packaging (more like 13 cents), am I being reasonable or unreasonable?

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

#34

Post by gte910h »

whichdan wrote: post #9
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,…

To watch GoT online, you need to have HBO bundled with your cable package, so for someone without cable, that's essentially $100/mo. I would absolutely pay $10-20/mo or $30-40 to watch GoT just on HBO online or streaming through Amazon. So I would say the inconvenience is more aligned with having to sign up for cable than anything else.

You can get an Australian iTunes account to get GOT in a timely manner.

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

#35

Post by milesskorpen »

maxko87 wrote: post #10

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

I think people don't get what "legal" really means. It seems comparable to all illegally-uploaded YouTube videos with "I don't intend to violate copyright" messages, which the posters seems to think exempts them from the law.

The utter disconnect between actual behavior and what is dictated by law is rather problematic. Seems like some compromise is necessary.

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

#36

Post by lomegor »

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 do realize that by expressing your opinion you opened yourself to the discussion? And I do want to refute your point: some of us do not believe that these private businesses own the culture they or their artists create, and that society has inherent rights to their consumption and distribution.

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

#37

Post by leot »

Let's say that a musician goes $50k in debt making an album. They are now given a choice: would you rather be listened to by 50 million people and get no immediate money, or by 10k people and be quickly made whole?

Which do you suppose they'd choose?

The fact is that celebrity, attention, and "coolness" are more than enough reward for most aspiring musicians.

Anyone who gets famous by giving their art away has been more than fairly rewarded for their work. Evidence for this comes from the 10k+ ultra-capable undiscovered who would happily pay to take this artist's place.

[Edit: I write this as someone who has earned good money through music, and thus I'm not sure what is being objected to, here. It is plainly true that fame brings instantaneous massive rewards and significant potential to earn more, later. It is also plainly true that even in the current "bad" economic environment for music, millions of people spend 10s of millions of hours each week writing, rehearsing, and performing. Clearly, the motivations are not primarily monetary.]

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

#38

Post by smspence »

mhb wrote: post #15

"...what she really wants is simply to pay to subscribe to “one massive Spotify-like catalog of music that will sync to my phone and various home entertainment devices...” Isn't that what Rhapsody is?

Pretty much. And isn't that what Spotify is? or is it implied that Spotify doesn't have a library as big as she wants?

Lately, I have been listening to Slacker Radio with a Premium account ($10/month), and it is very much like Spotify and/or Rhapsody, and I have been pretty impressed with how big the library of music is that can be played on-demand.

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

#39

Post by ctrlfrk »

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…

I don't want it to look like I'm defending her position, because I'm not. I think artists need to be paid. But I can't let that letter's maths go unscrutinised.

He starts off by saying "I’m gonna give you a break" and then ignores the record company's cut, which is about 80%. And then proceeds to use this drastically reduced value to lay a guilt trip.

It doesn't work that way, the record company isn't going to cut her a break, it's going to charge her the full 99c. Which means instead of $17.82 a month, she would need to pay $89.10 a month, for 10 years between the ages of 10 and 20.

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

#40

Post by briandear »

nerdfiles wrote: post #17

All the same, as consumers we are being punished for either (1) desiring and getting music in the means most convenient and historically accessible to us or (2) desire and getting technology in the means most convenient and historically accessible to us. The historical, political, and mercantile lines draw behind the scenes is a theatre we are not privvy to. Pulling the card "you're actually supporting the big wigs o…

Spoken like a true intellectual. Historically people have stolen photographs and graphics to use on their web pages. Is that cool? Image if someone just ripped off one of your client's advertising slogans and used the same design to sell their products. All's fair when digital right?

This "historical" argument is the same argument that people use to explain all manner of social ills. It's a cop out. It was wrong historically to steal and it's wrong now. People have a personal responsibility, it isn't societies fault that this girl is a thief.

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