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I Think Your App Should Be Free

blog.earbits.com

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191–200 of 242 posts

Re: I Think Your App Should Be Free

#191

Post by earbitscom »

run4yourlives wrote: post #188

If musicians spent half as much time paying attention in economics class as they did strumming their guitars, they might understand the situation a little better. "Piracy" exists for one reason and one reason alone: the price is too high for the consumer. There will always be a subset of the economy that will steal a particular good (i.e. for whom the price is always too high), from CD's to clothing to Ferrari's. Thi…

No other industry deals with people being able to copy their product flawlessly and eliminate any scarcity of the final package like music does, which you don't need an education in economics to understand the impact of. There is almost no reason to assume that $0.50 will convert better among people who pirate music now, since those peoples' current price is free. And if you don't think a song is worth $0.99, maybe you should pay more attention to what goes into creating one than just what goes into copying one when it's finished. The scarcity is not in the distribution, it's in the 20+ year process that goes into creating the original mold in the first place. The supply is unlimited because people make it so illegally and without regard for the rights' of content owners or the hard work they put into making products that millions of people enjoy. It's not a practice that should be defended on any level, let alone justified in a debate about free markets. Piracy is lazy and cheap, and that is all.

Re: I Think Your App Should Be Free

#192

Post by sliverstorm »

toyg wrote: post #123
earbitscom wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't understand what you're getting at. The argument is essentially that piracy is okay because 90% of artists are never going to earn their living from music. 90% of artists do not create a product that appeals to enough people for them to earn a living selling that product. 10% create something popular enough that they might be able to earn a living at it. How those products came to be popular socially is…

No, what I'm saying is that we're not compensating them for being great musicians , we're compensating their corporate sponsors for being great producers and marketeers . So I'd rather compensate them for being great t-shirt sellers , it doesn't really make any difference and it will probably guarantee them more cash.

You know, if their corporate sponsors don't make any money off the deal, they are going to stop signing recording artists.

Re: I Think Your App Should Be Free

#193

Post by earbitscom »

davesims wrote: post #160
earbitscom wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The simple fact is that most startup founders not only create the products that define their success, but drive that success almost entirely on their own, with modest help from their investors. As much as everyone likes to hate on record labels, the good ones do almost everything involved in the business of making your music successful. The artist is the product, but very rarely does the artist drive the business. Mo…

I'd say this is only partially true. These days labels are not, and I would argue should not be the artists' primary target for income. Touring and new media are things artists have control over to a much larger extent and that's where artists should be focused. If a good independent label wants to pick you up, like say Bella Union or Merge or Sub Pop (still) or the like then go for it, it might help. Or it might not…

That's the same as startup getting investment because they have "traction", and most won't if they don't. And the benefit of having a label is that, while you don't need one to tour and focus on new media, it sure as hell helps to have professional help from people who have done this countless times. There are thousands of independent labels. Some will do nothing for you. Those that do their job can do things that a fraction of 1% of artists can do on their own. Nobody should sit around waiting for a label, but nobody who knows what a good label can do would say they're not extremely valuable and worth signing over some of your "equity" to.

Re: I Think Your App Should Be Free

#194

Post by earbitscom »

davesims wrote: post #170
earbitscom wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The simple fact is that most startup founders not only create the products that define their success, but drive that success almost entirely on their own, with modest help from their investors. As much as everyone likes to hate on record labels, the good ones do almost everything involved in the business of making your music successful. The artist is the product, but very rarely does the artist drive the business. Mo…

You make a great point, that artists usually are terrible business people, and in a label relationship are usually passive and unaware. I think that, as much as any other aspect of the music industry, is what artists need to change. The average artist could learn the world from the average startup founder. Most don't have the temperament for it, and that's unfortunate. But those that do can take control over their in…

I just suspect that you don't want to live in a world where the only music that surfaces to the top or provides a living for its creator is one where all good musicians must also be astute business people. You miss out on a lot of good art that way.

Re: I Think Your App Should Be Free

#195

Post by hxa7241 »

epicureanideal wrote: post #48
dekz wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nine Inch Nails seem to be one of the few bands who are able to look into the future. They offer most(all?) of their music for free to download and make their money touring and selling other merchandise.

In a future with rampant piracy, what I see is a whole lot less music and software. We won't even notice. It's not like we'll wake up and suddenly apps will be gone. We probably won't even be able to measure a decrease year-over-year in app production. What we'll never notice is that twice as many apps or ten times as many apps would have been created, or would have had much better quality, if the creators had been p…

That is pure myth. Do we not already have 'rampant piracy', as the music/tv/film/etc industry would say -- indeed, we have had it for 10 years. And what is the result? Well, it pretty much looks like we have more of everything than we ever had before! Has there been a great 'dying off of culture'? Do you have less good stuff to enjoy -- music, film, tv, software -- than in 1995 or before? Is anyone going to say that?! It seems ridiculous.

And this is more true of software than anything else, and there is a good reason. The most important ingredient of software production is not 'incentivization', not money. It is other software, other information. That is because it is leveraged unlimitedly by being copyable: a single sum of money can support a single piece of development effort, but a single piece of information can support any number of development projects.

The more completely you have and enforce copyright, the more you destroy that leverage.

Re: I Think Your App Should Be Free

#196

Post by baddox »

davidw wrote: post #86
baddox wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people seem to be attacking your statement for being counter-intuitive. I will attack it for going against the observed reality of the past 10-15 years. In that time, piracy has grown significantly. Yet in that time, I guarantee you the rate of software development has increased dramatically by any metric you want to look at . I can't say the same thing for music, because I don't know how you would measure how m…

> I will say that I have discovered a lot of music with a very small fan base through the Internet and small regional labels. Meaning that they probably have day jobs and don't produce as much music as they could if they were able to work at it full time. This may or may not have anything to do with piracy, but I think the point of fewer digital goods being produced is one to consider.

Not true. Most of them go on regional or national tours several times a year, so if they have a job on the side it must be very lenient.

Re: I Think Your App Should Be Free

#197

Post by georgieporgie »

archgoon wrote: post #183
rick888 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the guy that wrote the thesis theme for Wordpress was being demonized for violating the GNU license, people used the word "steal" and "theft", even though no code was actually stolen. It's interesting to me because when something involves free software being used in un-intended ways, many here in the HN community have no problem describing it as theft. However, when it involves copyright violation, there are hug…

"Identity theft is still called theft" Identities are supposed to be unique, its part of the whole idea of identity. If someone else is using your identity, you are being deprived that. So in that case, yes, it is analogous to someone actually taking something physical to you. You cannot fully use your identity once someone else starts using it.

You cannot fully use your identity once someone else starts using it.

Of course you can.

Re: I Think Your App Should Be Free

#198

Post by jrockway »

rick888 wrote: post #171
jrockway wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who determines what is priced 'too highly'? The market. Also, do people have a right to content/things created and sold by others? Nope! But they steal it anyway. ("Bean counters said I couldn't fire a man just for being in a wheelchair. Did it anyway! Ramps are expensive!") Ultimately, I'd gladly pay for Netflix. But it doesn't work on any of my computers, so I just get better-quality stuff from Illegal Places inste…

"The market." It does, but when you rely on a subset of the market that will never pay for your stuff anyway, the value is more than just a little skewed. "Honey badger don't care, and neither do I." Good. I don't like paying taxes because they are just too expensive..so I don't. It's funny because when businesses do the same thing with workers (the american programmer is too expensive, so we just decided to hire fro…

I don't get upset when businesses outsource to India. If anything, hiring me the first time would result in less work for me. If I was hired for a few months to solve problem foo, then I'd be finished and gone and not getting paid. But because there is so much damage caused by bad programmers, I have to stay employed indefinitely just to keep the damage from being too bad. Multiply this by the number of good programmers in the world, and we're wasting a lot of money on outsourcing.

So yes, please outsource your programming some more.

Re: I Think Your App Should Be Free

#199

Post by earbitscom »

lwhi wrote: post #143
earbitscom wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who make music are not dependent on the music industry - they are the music industry. Moronic is the person who thinks that nothing can be done to foster a society where the creation of art is respected. Throwing your hands up and saying it's too late is just pathetic. Thankfully there are enough people out there who respect the value of recorded music that it's still a $9 Billion industry, and in fact, the "t…

" People who make music are not dependent on the music industry - they are the music industry. " Be realistic - a lot of people in the music industry do not make music. -- The problem is; people need to be compensated, but the way they've traditionally been compensated in the past is no longer tenable. This is where innovative ideas are required. Conceptually, copying an MP3 is no more theft than quoting someone with…

If music is simply an idea that someone can whisper to you once and then it's yours, you wouldn't need an MP3 to remember it. The day you can "quote" John Lennon and sound exactly like him, your argument has merit.

Re: I Think Your App Should Be Free

#200

Post by toyg »

sliverstorm wrote: post #192
toyg wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, what I'm saying is that we're not compensating them for being great musicians , we're compensating their corporate sponsors for being great producers and marketeers . So I'd rather compensate them for being great t-shirt sellers , it doesn't really make any difference and it will probably guarantee them more cash.

You know, if their corporate sponsors don't make any money off the deal, they are going to stop signing recording artists.

So be it, new deals will be struck and new forms of sponsorship will emerge.
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