Music piracy is down but still very much in play • Hacker News Board

Re: Music piracy is down but still very much in play

#11

Post by maccard » Fri, Jul 03, 2015, 9:39 AM UTC

yc1010 wrote: post #6

I am in Ireland, I wanted 1 single track (apparently there is no such thing as music shops or singles anymore, i feel old) So I went to Amazon.com found the track for $0.99 and went to pay, guess what "your credit card has to be issued by US bank" error, despite me having positive amazon.com gift balance with no need to use credit card. Fine so I went to amazon.co.uk, same track GBP 1.00 (notice the markup) and simil…

This is so true. I find it the same with BBC IPlayer - I live in the UK but travel home regularly, and have a 3 hour train journey. Despite having an active Sky subscription in the UK, and paying a TV licence in the UK, if I want to watch a show hosted on iPlayer there isn't any way to do it from Ireland. I normally end up having to download them before I go from other sources, which I hate doing..

Re: Music piracy is down but still very much in play

#12

Post by cJ0th » Fri, Jul 03, 2015, 9:39 AM UTC

yc1010 wrote: post #6

I am in Ireland, I wanted 1 single track (apparently there is no such thing as music shops or singles anymore, i feel old) So I went to Amazon.com found the track for $0.99 and went to pay, guess what "your credit card has to be issued by US bank" error, despite me having positive amazon.com gift balance with no need to use credit card. Fine so I went to amazon.co.uk, same track GBP 1.00 (notice the markup) and simil…

> These music companies deserve to go extinct for wasting half an hour of a prospective customers time and putting up silly barriers.

Let's face it, they don't want your type. Ownership is dying. It is much more profitable to renegotiate with the consumers that fear losing "their" music collection the price of a subscription service every once in a while.

Re: Music piracy is down but still very much in play

#13

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 03, 2015, 9:48 AM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #3

yuhong wrote: post #2

Did anyone notice that RIAA does much less "anti-piracy" lobbying etc now compared to the MPAA?

I bet you'd see a correlation between bandwidth availability as a function of the average media file size and lobbying activity - which is another way to say the RIAA fought when it happened, mostly lost, and took the best of the available bad options that eventually emerged. Film was safer for a while due to the relatively huge file sizes for video, plus film has some slightly different industry dynamics. FTA: But t…

[deleted]

Re: Music piracy is down but still very much in play

#14

Post by collyw » Fri, Jul 03, 2015, 9:54 AM UTC

andresmanz wrote: post #7

I legally download all the music I want for free without any effort. Because here we "pay for that music by buying a device". Too bad the wrong people receive that money. So I can't say that I like it, but on the other hand I barely download any music. It's maybe one track per month.

What country are you in?

Re: Music piracy is down but still very much in play

#15

Post by circlefavshape » Fri, Jul 03, 2015, 10:02 AM UTC

yc1010 wrote: post #6

I am in Ireland, I wanted 1 single track (apparently there is no such thing as music shops or singles anymore, i feel old) So I went to Amazon.com found the track for $0.99 and went to pay, guess what "your credit card has to be issued by US bank" error, despite me having positive amazon.com gift balance with no need to use credit card. Fine so I went to amazon.co.uk, same track GBP 1.00 (notice the markup) and simil…

It's like Game of bloody Thrones (I'm in Ireland too). I don't have a TV, so there is no way for me to pay to watch an episode

Re: Music piracy is down but still very much in play

#16

Post by jamespo » Fri, Jul 03, 2015, 10:05 AM UTC

maccard wrote: post #11

yc1010 wrote: post #6

I am in Ireland, I wanted 1 single track (apparently there is no such thing as music shops or singles anymore, i feel old) So I went to Amazon.com found the track for $0.99 and went to pay, guess what "your credit card has to be issued by US bank" error, despite me having positive amazon.com gift balance with no need to use credit card. Fine so I went to amazon.co.uk, same track GBP 1.00 (notice the markup) and simil…

This is so true. I find it the same with BBC IPlayer - I live in the UK but travel home regularly, and have a 3 hour train journey. Despite having an active Sky subscription in the UK, and paying a TV licence in the UK, if I want to watch a show hosted on iPlayer there isn't any way to do it from Ireland. I normally end up having to download them before I go from other sources, which I hate doing..

I believe the BBC should hand out a username/password with the license fee for access to their online services. Maybe this would require a change to their charter.

Re: Music piracy is down but still very much in play

#17

Post by jamespo » Fri, Jul 03, 2015, 10:10 AM UTC

iamben wrote: post #8

anigbrowl wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet you'd see a correlation between bandwidth availability as a function of the average media file size and lobbying activity - which is another way to say the RIAA fought when it happened, mostly lost, and took the best of the available bad options that eventually emerged. Film was safer for a while due to the relatively huge file sizes for video, plus film has some slightly different industry dynamics. FTA: But t…

Sure, you can say 'ouch, 60% of your industry' - but you could say the same about the guys breeding horses when cars came along (or whatever) - times change. Of course it hurts when the golden goose stops laying eggs, but if you don't adapt to the world, how do you expect to survive? The labels (majors especially) spent so long and so much trying to stuff the genie back in the bottle when they could have been adaptin…

How accurate is the horse analogy? The music industry is still the one producing the product, it's just very easy to get it for free nowadays.

Re: Music piracy is down but still very much in play

#18

Post by rawe » Fri, Jul 03, 2015, 10:27 AM UTC

Situation in Germany: - GEMA causes video blocking on youtube - there is the GEMA-Vermutung (it is assumed that if you play music in public, it is from a GEMA member and you have to pay a fee or prove that the music was from non-GEMA-members) - there is a Pauschalabgabe fee for storage media (and devices) for the potential use as backup/storage for the music I already paid for (but I am not allowed to crack copy "protection" on media). - there is a monthly fee for GEZ/Rundfunkbeitrag for state "independent" media bound to just living in a flat/house even if there is no device capable of playing media and not bound to actual use of their service. Most media on their online platforms is available for a short period of time (~1 week) and gets deleted after this, they use flash player and there are 3rd party tools [0] necessary so just search through all the media / get a direct link to feed into mplayer

Should I throw even more money on these unfair systems by buying music/media?

[0] http://www.mediathekdirekt.de/

Re: Music piracy is down but still very much in play

#19

Post by iamben » Fri, Jul 03, 2015, 10:35 AM UTC

jamespo wrote: post #17

iamben wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, you can say 'ouch, 60% of your industry' - but you could say the same about the guys breeding horses when cars came along (or whatever) - times change. Of course it hurts when the golden goose stops laying eggs, but if you don't adapt to the world, how do you expect to survive? The labels (majors especially) spent so long and so much trying to stuff the genie back in the bottle when they could have been adaptin…

How accurate is the horse analogy? The music industry is still the one producing the product, it's just very easy to get it for free nowadays.

Haha, not incredibly - it was the first thing that came in to my head - but you got what I meant! I'm sure there's a better one :-)

The major labels (certainly), controlled the distribution channels (and I know a lot of indies used a major for distribution, when it was all physical media) - and they don't, so much, anymore. My point was they chose to fight the future rather than adapt to it, so other people came and stole the new business. There's what - 4 big labels? Had they come together they could have sewn up digital distribution before other companies (iTunes, then Spotify, etc etc) came and stole their revenues. Sure music industry profits may be down, but that money is probably just being made elsewhere.

I guess change is hard. The 50 something record exec behind the big desk in the year 1999 who's never sent an email, getting told by some 20 year old kid in a winamp t-shirt that 'MP3s are the future' is probably going to laugh him out the office. When he realises people are taking music for free, in bulk, his reaction is(/was??!) probably - that's stealing, not 'how can we monetize this?'

Re: Music piracy is down but still very much in play

#20

Post by Mimu » Fri, Jul 03, 2015, 10:43 AM UTC

I don't know if this is still true or not, but they make (made) damn sure their offer was so ridiculous people would actively try to go around it.

The devices limitation? Who the fuck came up with this idea thinking it will be good? Greedy kids I won't cry if they disappear, which probably won't happen anytime soon.

It's simple, people will go for the easiest solution. I barely know anyone illegally downloading videogames since Steam became the go to, and steam is like a big DRM but so easy to use, always download at max speed etc, people just use it, including myself.