DRM: An Industry Changed

[Echolocating]

Anyway, what did I just say about bringing in lost sales vs increased exposure arguments?

In the music industry, state an example of a popular band than suffered financially due to digital piracy. Try finding a quote somewhere that states, "We sold out all of our concerts, but didn't sell well in the stores." It's the record labels that are raising a stink about it because they have to act like they care to keep investors happy, nothing else.

I honestly believe that the ability to share music counter-balances those potential purchases (lost sales) with additional purchases gained from new fans (increased exposure). It's the best of both worlds, I feel.

te2rx, your whole argument is really only supported by the idea that a person will buy the music legally if it was not possible to pirate the music. I don't think that is the case at all.

The number one reason to remove DRM from music is because it's only going to raise the price of music (discourage honest purchases) and piracy will still continue on and be even more attractive.

 

[Blaxton]

te2rx, I agree, it does bring up a great deal of controversy and complication when you start discussing positives. Personally, however, I am one of those people that watches Bleach on Adult Swim, and I started watching the subs. I like the show, and so I enjoy watching it when it?s on. It?s the same for me with Ghost in the Shell, Naruto, DBZ, FMA, Champloo, and Trinity Blood. I watch them all whenever I can, even though I know what?s going to happen. That?s partially why I?m so interested in this possibility.

And even through you plead that I don?t do it, it?s a can of worms that I want to open because I don't know much about it (that?s why I posed my thoughts as questions). If it turns out that even the extra exposure isn't out doing the damage it causes then that needs to be brought forth. Everything needs to be considered. As of right now, I feel that we are only discussing the most superficial effects. There has to be a lot more going on that isn't being talked about. Blinding ourselves to other, more complicated issues won?t make what we say any more relevant. Ignoring another variable won?t make it go away.

Socrates suggested that every perspective should be brought forth so that a conversation can take place in order to reveal why a particular understanding is misguided. I agree with him. I see no reason to refrain from bringing up a point just because its complicated or derived from misinformation. The only way to correct such a perspective is to debate it openly. I?m here to learn (that?s why I?m on this site, and on the web in general), and if that means looking stupid by bringing up a foolish point then so be it.

Also, there is no way to conclude, with certainty, that illegal downloads have decreased record/movie sales. People might simply be content with listening to the radio or watching MTV. Maybe people aren't buying DVDs because most Hollywood movies these days aren't any good. My point is that there is no way to prove it one way or another, but we are discussing it anyway. The entire discussion of illegal downloading is based on supposed effects. Regardless of how highly correlated two issues are within a case study a clear link of causality cannot be made. We are talking in assumptions and suppositions; there is no way around it. If something is especially wobbly then I suggest that we bringing up those matters MORE than the clear, easy to talk about ones. We won?t ever come to understand them if we don?t.

 

[Meophist]

As for fansubbing, most of the fansubbers have come into terms that what they are doing is illegal. Initally, fansubbing was done to bring exposure to anime, but anime doesn't really need exposure anymore. There's a bunch of articles around the Internet about this, talking about the morality of fansubbing. Those articles can probably tell more about the fansubbing community than I can, so I won't bother trying.

What I find more interesting is the visual novel translation scene. As the companies that make them aren't very big, as well as the incredibly small English-speaking fanbase that they have, the few who are actually ambitious enough to translate the entire games, seem to really want to support the companies that made the game in the first place. This made for some very interesting events, such as one refusing to release a translation out of fear of piracy.

Many of the numbers were quite depressing. One game in particular was pirated an enourmous amount despite it only costing ten dollars to buy. Much of the community is so used to getting things for free that it seems that the prospect of digital content that isn't downloadable for free scares them. So much so that they are willing to pay to make it free. The digital world is a wierd one.

 

[Ajar]

I came across an article [http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070212-8813.html] this morning referencing a study on the effect piracy has had on music sales.

A new study in the Journal of Political Economy by Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf has found that illegal music downloads have had no noticeable effects on the sale of music, contrary to the claims of the recording industry.

Entitled "The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales: An Empirical Analysis," the study matched an extensive sample of music downloads to American music sales data in order to search for causality between illicit downloading and album sales. Analyzing data from the final four months of 2002, the researchers estimated that P2P affected no more than 0.7% of sales in that timeframe.

After trying multiple methods and controlling for various factors, the researchers couldn't find any statistically significant relationship between P2P downloading and music sales.

 

[onesilverbullet]

Oh, please - piracy didn't hurt the biggies, it eliminated the little (read interesting) guys, the true indie labels that depended on unit-sales to break even. The money's still changing hands, but until the record-industry's chokehold on booking, promotion, radio and tv/movie/advertising tie-ins is broken, we're stuck with good-looking-and-under-25 pop sludge, flash-in-the-pan 'cool' college acts and the occasional 'grandfathered' act. Now that the only way to make any money at all is to tour, if you're not on a major label (who hasn't signed anyone under the age of 30 in *years*(in any genre!) or a weenie college act jammed into a Sprinter van, it's simply not gonna happen. Exactly what are we supposed to listen to in 10 years?

Enjoy your Jessica Simpson and OK Go. And John Mellencamp.

 

[Joe]

Wait, whose country is this?

 

[Shannon Drake]

This is OURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR COUNTRYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!

 

[ReedRichards]

It's not necessarily an issue strictly regarding middlemen (distribution companies, record labels). You can still be an artist who self-publishes all the time. But regardless your stuff will still get warezed online (please resist the urge to bring in lost sales vs increased exposure arguments). There's basically no secure way to distribute any electronic media, and because of that there's massive amounts of piracy. That's where DRM comes in.

People always try to recontextualize internet piracy as poetic justice against media conglomerates -- it is, and as much as I love that aspect of it, it isn't the whole picture. Everything gets warezed online regardless of whether it's indie/self-published or released by a major media conglomerate. The need for secure channels to distribute electronic media (the ideal of DRM) would've came about regardless of how the distribution industry was shaped -- more specifically regardless of whether record labels are evil or not. If every record label was wiped off the face of the earth, the need for DRM would still remain.

My thoughts exactly.