Beware illegal downloaders: Data is being collected on you to crack down on piracy in

[saskflames69]

At the end of the day, all moral bs aside, it's about money. Do I really care if those big companies lose money? What about the family that makes 50k per year that receives an email from the RIAA asking for $150,000 in damages because Junior decided to torrent a few songs? Where's their rights?

Companies like that are pretty much the same thing as cancer. They can attack you at any time and your odds of beating them are not in your favor.

Frankly, it sickens me when I hear that out of a $9.99 album on iTunes, only $0.94 goes to the artist, $3.70 goes to Apple (understandable, although a bit high) and the record company gets $5.35. Less than 10% goes to the artist. In fact, I only use iTunes in an emergency if I really want to listen to a song but I don't have access to my computer. Most of my music comes from free programs that download the MP3 from Youtube. This doesn't mean that I don't support my favorite artists. I bought a ticket to the RHCP for 90 bucks, roughly the equivalent to buying 95 of their albums on iTunes. I know, not all of the money from ticket sales goes to the band, but it's still better than seeing 53% of the profits going to WMG.

[GP_Matt]

Does anyone know what the costs are for the record company? Between discovering new bands, producing and marketing I am sure they spend big money, especially for the second tier bands.

[Azure]

They also do their best to screw over the artist. Sure, their costs are high, but I don't think at the end of the day its fair that the artist makes less than 10% from iTunes sales.

Considering iTunes is the biggest driver of music downloads these days.

[polak]

Artists never made their money off albums

They're lucky if they get $0.25 of every album sold. I believe Celine Dion had the best recording contract ever which was $1.00 for every cd sold.

[Stranger]

How much would they make for everytime a song is played on the radio?

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by polak

Artists never made their money off albums

They're lucky if they get $0.25 of every album sold. I believe Celine Dion had the best recording contract ever which was $1.00 for every cd sold.

They're lucky to get a cent other than songwriting royalties because of record labels' creative accounting which can show that a multi-platinum album technically never broke even and thus the artist is owed no money.

Which is precisely the reason why no one feels guilty downloading music. At least with movies the actors, director, writer, etc. all get paid for their work.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by Stranger

How much would they make for everytime a song is played on the radio?

It depends how popular the song is (bigger songs get a bigger rate), how many listeners the station has, and whether it's commercial radio or public/college radio. I believe the normal rate is 5-10 cents per play and that pretty much all goes to whoever owns the publishing rights and/or the songwriter.

Though even the most heavily played songs don't generate a ton of money. Yesterday by the Beatles is one of the most played songs in history but I believe it's only gotten 7-8 million plays in its nearly 50 year existence in the US which really doesn't lead to a lot of money from radio.

[kirant]

Originally Posted by saskflames69

At the end of the day, all moral bs aside, it's about money. Do I really care if those big companies lose money?

Which is a concern on both sides. Companies don't view individuals as people, but simple walking sacks of cash which they can pull income off of. As such, they feel free to attack as they please. On the flip side, people don't view the people in companies as people. They view them as heartless automatons. Each of the guys working there (well, most) return to their family each and every night, like the guy scraping together a living who just got his pants sued off him. Not to mention, if the companies turn south, the first to lose their jobs probably are the same work-a-day people in the company, who are also just trying to make a stable income. As unfortunate as it is for those seeking change, raging against a company will first kill the lower-tier jobs, then work its way up as the company fails to generate profit.

It's a real fascinating topic and the concept of Dunbar's number plays a unique roll in this I think. The theory itself suggests that we can only view so many meaningful social relationships (Wikipedia sites 100-230. I have seen it go up and down). From this, we can see in human nature that, in order to comprehend individuals past this mark, we have a tendency to stereotype and make 2D characters out of people in order to attempt to accommodate it. I'm sure most people reading this have difficulty imagining an individual writing this, the same way we may have difficulty considering that [insert your least favourite CP member] is actually a a person at the end of the day. Cracked.com's "Monkeysphere" article provides an extremely good background on the concept in this connection.

[AR_Six]

Originally Posted by polak

Do you not understand how inflation works?
Some of those movies have been re-released a few times but the point is still valid.

I don't get the chart though. Like it has Avengers sitting at 623 mil. I'm pretty sure the correct figure for what that movie grossed was more like 1.5 billion. If they're taking into account re-releases and secondary sales, something like Gone with the Wind has had decades to sell videotapes and dvds.

[Itse]

Sorry for bumping the thread, but there's something rather relevant that wasn't really touched on in the previous discussion, so I thought I'd mention it now that I ran into this link.

[EDIT: Sorry, ended up posting various stuff.]

I'm talking about the incredible inability of the copyright industry to get it's stuff together, technically speakingn and in the PR sector.

Here's an example of the technical stuff:


http://torrentfreak.com/movie-studios-ask-google-to-censor-their-own-films-facebook-and-wikipedia-121203/

On behalf of Lionsgate a DMCA notice was sent to Google, asking the search engine to remove links to infringing copies of the movie “Cabin in the Woods”. The notice in question only lists two dozen URLs, but still manages to include perfectly legal copies of the film on Amazon, iTunes, Blockbuster and Xfinity.

So really, if you can't find something on sale legally, there's a chance you can't find it because the company has asked it's sales channels to be hidden from the public.

BBC Films, like the other studios, also target their own film, in this case “Ill Manors”. However, the DMCA notice in question also asks Google to take down several film reviews published by The Guardian, The Independent, The Mirror and the Daily Mail. Even worse, the takedown request lists the film’s official Facebook page.

And here's a link explaining one of the bigger news stories in Finland in the last week. This one got a ton of coverage. (Yeah, kind of a slow news week.)

Police Raid 9-year Old Pirate Bay Girl, Confiscate Winnie-the-Pooh Laptop

One issue here was actually that it's highly questionable if the police actually were even close to being within their rights to do a search like this, or do any confiscating. Also, the "fine" had not gone through any court, as it should have by Finnish law.

But mostly it was a case of optics. Big bad policemen doing a raid and intimidating the parents of a little girl for the benefit of a private organization because of one downloaded album that apparently didn't even work and which they had already bought by that point anyway.

All this ended up doing was get the artist in case a ton hatemail and a lot of terrible PR for the copyright industy, for the sake of a few hundred euros.

And then there's just stuff like this:
Copyright Industry Reality Takes Six Years To Catch Up With the Worst Satire of It
Copyright Monopoly Lobby Sues Reputable Professor For Saying They're A Monopoly

This is also a good point :

When Did It Become Our Job To Fix Their Business?

It’s not our job to figure out how to fix their business models, especially when said business models are based on faulty or untenable assumptions. If you’ve been trying to grow oranges in Alaska, and make up the difference with farm subsidies, the end of subsidies is not a punishment, it’s well-deserved justice.
Instead of answering the same question every third discussion, it’s time to turn the moral argument on its head. “Is it worth it to deny us every piece of art since 1923 to ensure Lady Gaga will be able to get five Bentleys instead of three?”

Now, yes, those are just from two sites, both firmly in the pirate side of the discussion. However, all the basic facts hold up and I think they provide a good glimpse into sides of the discussion that have not been mentioned at all.

Now, please note that I don't agree with everything said on those articles, I just posted them to provide some more perspective on the issue.

[polak]

Originally Posted by AR_Six

I don't get the chart though. Like it has Avengers sitting at 623 mil. I'm pretty sure the correct figure for what that movie grossed was more like 1.5 billion. If they're taking into account re-releases and secondary sales, something like Gone with the Wind has had decades to sell videotapes and dvds.

I think it only considers revenues directly from the box-office (so ticket sales only) and it's a domestic chart.