Can SOPA Save the Music Industry?

[UnderTow]

Originally Posted by spaceman

LOL. The article ADMITS that sales have indeed jumped 25%, whether it's the iPhone effect ( hard to believe ), or the HADOPI law.

Just look at the graph yourself. (Pic added to previous post).

please continue this discussion on that thread. I'm not going to post everything twice in both threads.

The moderators specifically allowed this thread to discuss these topics while completely closing the piracy discussion the sub-forum. Please respect that.

Alistair

[chrisso]

Originally Posted by UnderTow

In English: While the study suggests that there is a correlation between the increase in sales on iTune and the adoption of the Hadopi laws, it does not prove it.

So in short: Nothing has been proven. A pitty really.
Alistair

More and more the anti-action on piracy lobby have resorted to the successful tactic, the politics of doubt.
This is a well known strategy and in the last decade has been utilized with tremendous effect to stall any change in legislation in many democratic countries.

Founded in 1984 by three very prominent Cold War nuclear physicists, the Marshall Institute has weighed in against—that is, in denial of—the dangers of cigarette smoking, the reality of atmospheric ozone depletion, the effects of acid rain, the problems caused by second hand smoke, the offensive nature of the US Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars), and, of course, last but not least, the existence of anthropogenic climate change. Though having been shown, in each and every case, to be wrong, this relative handful of scientists—largely from outside the specialized fields they were attacking—have, nonetheless, been successful in generating a climate of doubt that has obscured and delayed progressive legislation on these matters often for decades. That such doubt-mongering is a deliberate, Machiavellian strategy is reflected in a formerly secret report from the tobacco industry that famously stated, ‘Doubt is our product’.

One of the key tactics routinely deployed in this ‘manufacturing of doubt’ is the notion that science has not provided absolute ‘proof’ of the issue in question.

For 'science' read 'content creators'.
Those arguing against anti-piracy legislation claim there is no absolute proof that piracy has threatened sales, and now add no absolute proof that action against piracy has recovered sales.

Invariably, of course, the ‘issue in question’ consists of a dire threat to the commonweal, whose remedy simultaneously represents a dire threat to capitalist profits.

Action against piracy, according to those arguing against anti-piracy legislation, threatens common use of the internet, and threatens business health, those hugely successful businesses that are web based and those businesses that use the internet extensively (aka 'capitalist profits).

The politics of doubt card being played in the anti-piracy debate.

[UnderTow]

Originally Posted by axs1

If you look at the frequency of posts from rack gear the past three days, you will notice that it would be seemingly impossible for one person to stay awake and be that active for so long. Ergo Rack gear is not 1 person, but probably a group/office of SOPA-lobbyists.

It might explain the memory issues. ;-)

Alistair

[UnderTow]

Originally Posted by chrisso

More and more the anti-action on piracy lobby have resorted to the successful tactic, the politics of doubt.

Bad logic. You can show as many examples of politics of doubt that does not make this politics of doubt. The study is bunk. End of story.

Alistair

[UnderTow]

PS:

Originally Posted by spaceman

The Le Monde article ADMITS that sales have indeed jumped 25% according to that study, whether it's the iPhone effect ( hard to believe ), or the HADOPI law.

Your French is no good. :-D

The article states "d'après une étude réalisée par des universitaires américains, se basant sur les ventes d'albums et de morceaux sur iTunes des quatre principales maisons de disques, les ventes ont augmenté partout, mais nettement plus en France : entre 22,5 et 25 % de mieux que dans les pays voisins.[/quote]

In other words in English: According to a study by....

Alistair

[chrisso]

Originally Posted by UnderTow

You can show as many examples of politics of doubt that does not make this politics of doubt.
Alistair

Maybe you've been in the debate for five minutes?
All along, one of the biggest claims against the industry is that nothing was proven. Not every download is a lost sale. Competing entertainment not piracy results in lower sales, even bad quality music results in lost sales etc.....
Anything to cast doubt on the piracy argument.
As the issue reaches the pointy end, the use of the doubt tactic is becoming even more important.
In the last week the anti SOPA lobby played the tactic exactly as described above.
That legislation would do nothing, and that it would destroy average internet usage and the health of business using the internet.

a formerly secret report from the tobacco industry that famously stated, ‘Doubt is our product’.

the ‘issue in question’ consists of a dire threat to the commonweal, whose remedy simultaneously represents a dire threat to capitalist profits.

[Bassmankr]

Saw this posting on one of the big computer forums and thought posting a copy of it would provide even another wrinkle in the discussion here. How much of this stuff is really about a few big players profits? Obviously new models that give artists more money for their efforts are going to met with extreme reaction from the few that control the biz now and it looks like that's what is happening here: "Wizard220 Limp Gawd, 5.7 Years

Status: Wizard220 is offline
The REAL reason on why MegaUpload was taken down and they the US Feds are rounding up all.

Why was MegaUpload really shut down?

In December of 2011, just weeks before the takedown, Digital Music News reported on something new that the creators of #Megaupload were about to unroll. Something that would rock the music industry to its core. (Digital Music News - MegaUpload Is Now Launching a Music Service Called MegaBox...)

I present to you... MegaBox. MegaBox was going to be an alternative music store that was entirely cloud-based and offered artists a better money-making opportunity than they would get with any record label.

"UMG knows that we are going to compete with them via our own music venture called Megabox.com, a site that will soon allow artists to sell their creations directly to consumers while allowing artists to keep 90 percent of earnings," MegaUpload founder Kim 'Dotcom' Schmitz told Torrentfreak

Not only did they plan on allowing artists to keep 90% of their earnings on songs that they sold, they wanted to pay them for songs they let users download for free.

"We have a solution called the Megakey that will allow artists to earn income from users who download music for free," Dotcom outlined. "Yes that's right, we will pay artists even for free downloads. The Megakey business model has been tested with over a million users and it works."

Source:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/11131408...ts/HQJxDRiwAWq

Leave it to the USA aka USSK

Sorry but the USA has turned into a dictatorship and a police state. You go against the big boys and they the criminals on capital hill will just send the military or the feds after you."

[UnderTow]

I am actually disappointed in the quality of the study recently linked. From my understanding the French Hadopi laws went after actual offenders rather than ISPs and the like. They issued a warning first and then only after that, in case of non-compliance, hefty fines. (Hefty but not ridiculous like some of the stuff I have seen in the states). I am in favour of such an approach. (Assuming I have the details right).

Alistair

[spaceman]

Originally Posted by UnderTow

PS:



Your French is no good. :-D

The article states "d'après une étude réalisée par des universitaires américains, se basant sur les ventes d'albums et de morceaux sur iTunes des quatre principales maisons de disques, les ventes ont augmenté partout, mais nettement plus en France : entre 22,5 et 25 % de mieux que dans les pays voisins.

[/QUOTE]

Nope , you're wrong. Continue the discussion on that thread concerning that study. i'm not going to post everything twice here and there.

[UnderTow]

Originally Posted by Bassmankr

https://plus.google.com/u/0/11131408...ts/HQJxDRiwAWq

Do you maybe have a working link? This one has been shortened and doesn't work.

Thanks,

Alistair

[chrisso]

Originally Posted by Bassmankr

Saw this posting on one of the big computer forums

There is an important clue in that sentence.

Obviously new models that give artists more money for their efforts are going to met with extreme reaction from the few that control the biz

We've actually discussed this. It isn't new. Ask yourself why ordinary musos haven't lined up to support Megauploads against the takedown, it's not just those who you think 'control the biz', the majority of the working music community have said nothing against this takedown.
Another question.......
Megauploads has been Mega since 2005. And it's only now, 6 to 7 years on, with million dollar mansions and vast luxury car collections in the bag that they are no more than filtering out a rumour that they might start paying artists??????
Wake up and smell the coffee.

[duff mcshark]

Originally Posted by Bassmankr

Saw this posting on one of the big computer forums and thought posting a copy of it would provide even another wrinkle in the discussion here. How much of this stuff is really about a few big players profits? Obviously new models that give artists more money for their efforts are going to met with extreme reaction from the few that control the biz now and it looks like that's what is happening here: "Wizard220 Limp Gawd, 5.7 Years

Status: Wizard220 is offline
The REAL reason on why MegaUpload was taken down and they the US Feds are rounding up all.

Why was MegaUpload really shut down?

In December of 2011, just weeks before the takedown, Digital Music News reported on something new that the creators of #Megaupload were about to unroll. Something that would rock the music industry to its core. (Digital Music News - MegaUpload Is Now Launching a Music Service Called MegaBox...)

I present to you... MegaBox. MegaBox was going to be an alternative music store that was entirely cloud-based and offered artists a better money-making opportunity than they would get with any record label.

"UMG knows that we are going to compete with them via our own music venture called Megabox.com, a site that will soon allow artists to sell their creations directly to consumers while allowing artists to keep 90 percent of earnings," MegaUpload founder Kim 'Dotcom' Schmitz told Torrentfreak

Not only did they plan on allowing artists to keep 90% of their earnings on songs that they sold, they wanted to pay them for songs they let users download for free.

"We have a solution called the Megakey that will allow artists to earn income from users who download music for free," Dotcom outlined. "Yes that's right, we will pay artists even for free downloads. The Megakey business model has been tested with over a million users and it works."

Source:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/11131408...ts/HQJxDRiwAWq

Leave it to the USA aka USSK

Sorry but the USA has turned into a dictatorship and a police state. You go against the big boys and they the criminals on capital hill will just send the military or the feds after you."

Band Camp essentially has that same business model and wasn't shut down by our "police state".

[initialsBB]

Originally Posted by UnderTow

Just look at the graph yourself. Look at the right hand side.




I don't see a 25% lead by any stretch of the imagination.

That's the wrong graph. That's google trends, not itunes sales.

[chrisso]

Originally Posted by duff mcshark

Band Camp essentially has that same business model and wasn't shut down by our "police state".

And do the owners of Bandcamp have million dollar mansions, millions of dollars in cash under the bed, illegal firearms and numerous luxury cars?
maybe, but I doubt it.

[initialsBB]

Originally Posted by Bassmankr

The REAL reason on why MegaUpload was taken down and they the US Feds are rounding up all.

You know the real reason I was arrested for drug trafficking is that I had a top secret plan to give away free meds to children with cancer, and the pharmaceutical companies wanted to stop it so the man shut me down.

[UnderTow]

Originally Posted by initialsBB

That's the wrong graph. That's google trends, not itunes sales.

You are partially correct. It is the correct graph but the scale on the right hand side is not the actual sales. (The red and blue lines are still the sales). The sales are on the left hand side of that same graph. Let's have a closer look:



Check out that scale. If you look at the sales in France compared to the control countries in the last few months there is a difference between 10.7 and maybe 10.8 or 10.9. How does that make 25%?

Lies and statistics...


Even bunker than I thought. Thanks for pointing that out.

Alistair

[Don Hills]

Originally Posted by rack gear

... Can you expand on why you agree that I should only have to send one DMCA notice per title, per site? ...

That makes sense, provided any repeat uploads are identical to the first. "The file you have uploaded appears to be the same as one which has previously been uploaded and which has been claimed to contain copyright infringing material." At this point, the file can be rejected. Or the uploader has to specify that they are the true owners of the copyright to the uploaded work, in which case a notification is sent to the original copyright holding claimant. (This would cover the case where a work is maliciously removed by someone who doesn't own the copyright - put them in touch with each other and let them slug it out in court.)

As I've explained earlier, identification fails once obfuscation becomes the norm. Obfuscation of container files makes it very hard to identify the content. For sites such as Youtube where the content has to be uploaded in "readable" form, it's harder to obfuscate but still possible - minor changes to the values in an AV encoder can produce a file which is visually similar, but significantly different in structure and automated pattern matching, to the original. Yes, it raises the bar for upload infringers. But it can be done without significantly raising the bar for download infringers. Remember, one upload - millions of downloads.

[UnderTow]

Originally Posted by chrisso

There is an important clue in that sentence.

What were you saying about the politics of doubt?

I'll just repeat exactly what I said about you yesterday and make the moderators job easy and self-censor it for you: <EDITED BY MODERATORS>

Alistair

[chrisso]

Why would a 'big computer forum' concerned at the loss of internet freedoms care what the music industry thinks?
It's more realpolitik than 'doubt'.
I'm just pointing out the obvious for the sake of balance.

[UnderTow]

Originally Posted by chrisso

Why would a 'big computer forum' concerned at the loss of internet freedoms care what the music industry thinks?

It is about the info. Not the forum or the opinions posted about the news.

How about this then: Digital Music News - MegaUpload Is Now Launching a Music Service Called MegaBox... That is not a computer forum. But nice try chrisso.

Alistair

[UnderTow]

Anyway, time for bed. Night night all! (And good morning to you Chrisso :-)

Alistair

[rack gear]

Originally Posted by Bassmankr

Saw this posting on one of the big computer forums and thought posting a copy of it would provide even another wrinkle in the discussion here. How much of this stuff is really about a few big players profits? Obviously new models that give artists more money for their efforts are going to met with extreme reaction from the few that control the biz now and it looks like that's what is happening here: "Wizard220 Limp Gawd, 5.7 Years

Status: Wizard220 is offline
The REAL reason on why MegaUpload was taken down and they the US Feds are rounding up all.

Why was MegaUpload really shut down?

In December of 2011, just weeks before the takedown, Digital Music News reported on something new that the creators of #Megaupload were about to unroll. Something that would rock the music industry to its core. (Digital Music News - MegaUpload Is Now Launching a Music Service Called MegaBox...)

I present to you... MegaBox. MegaBox was going to be an alternative music store that was entirely cloud-based and offered artists a better money-making opportunity than they would get with any record label.

"UMG knows that we are going to compete with them via our own music venture called Megabox.com, a site that will soon allow artists to sell their creations directly to consumers while allowing artists to keep 90 percent of earnings," MegaUpload founder Kim 'Dotcom' Schmitz told Torrentfreak

Not only did they plan on allowing artists to keep 90% of their earnings on songs that they sold, they wanted to pay them for songs they let users download for free.

"We have a solution called the Megakey that will allow artists to earn income from users who download music for free," Dotcom outlined. "Yes that's right, we will pay artists even for free downloads. The Megakey business model has been tested with over a million users and it works."

Source:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/11131408...ts/HQJxDRiwAWq

Leave it to the USA aka USSK

Sorry but the USA has turned into a dictatorship and a police state. You go against the big boys and they the criminals on capital hill will just send the military or the feds after you."

that dude needs to take off the tin foil hat...

[rack gear]

Originally Posted by UnderTow

It is about the info. Not the forum or the opinions posted about the news.

How about this then: Digital Music News - MegaUpload Is Now Launching a Music Service Called MegaBox... That is not a computer forum. But nice try chrisso.

I doubt this had anything to do with it. I don't know what they would have launched with, without licensing deals from the major labels... I also don't think there is much love from the indie community.

That reminds me... any word on how this is doing?

music.google.com/

[rack gear]

Originally Posted by UnderTow

I am actually disappointed in the quality of the study recently linked. From my understanding the French Hadopi laws went after actual offenders rather than ISPs and the like. They issued a warning first and then only after that, in case of non-compliance, hefty fines. (Hefty but not ridiculous like some of the stuff I have seen in the states). I am in favour of such an approach. (Assuming I have the details right).

Alistair

ok... we're making progress... we share common ground on:

1) Closing the loophole in the DMCA so that only ONE notice should ever have to be sent, per file, per site

and

2) speeding/parking ticket type fines issued and collected at the ISP level for repeat offenders.

that's a start.

[rack gear]

Originally Posted by axs1

If you look at the frequency of posts from rack gear the past three days, you will notice that it would be seemingly impossible for one person to stay awake and be that active for so long. Ergo Rack gear is not 1 person, but probably a group/office of SOPA-lobbyists.

laughable as this is, the same could be said of undertow.

[rack gear]

Originally Posted by Don Hills

That makes sense, provided any repeat uploads are identical to the first. "The file you have uploaded appears to be the same as one which has previously been uploaded and which has been claimed to contain copyright infringing material." At this point, the file can be rejected. Or the uploader has to specify that they are the true owners of the copyright to the uploaded work, in which case a notification is sent to the original copyright holding claimant. (This would cover the case where a work is maliciously removed by someone who doesn't own the copyright - put them in touch with each other and let them slug it out in court.)

As I've explained earlier, identification fails once obfuscation becomes the norm. Obfuscation of container files makes it very hard to identify the content. For sites such as Youtube where the content has to be uploaded in "readable" form, it's harder to obfuscate but still possible - minor changes to the values in an AV encoder can produce a file which is visually similar, but significantly different in structure and automated pattern matching, to the original. Yes, it raises the bar for upload infringers. But it can be done without significantly raising the bar for download infringers. Remember, one upload - millions of downloads.

thanks don, but the question was actually for undertow who also supports closing the loop hole in the DMCA.

as for

Obfuscation of container files makes it very hard to identify the content.

only as hard as it makes if for consumers to find it. it cuts both ways... there is no magic power that allows end users to see the and understand what it is and not enforcement... and at that point, the end user is inconvenienced probably more than enforcement... once it's just enough of a PITA, it might just be less of a hassle to pay the 99 cents legally for a song...

[rack gear]

Originally Posted by Kenny Gioia

Sounds like a great time for me to jump ship.

These conversations can obviously go on forever and it is clear that we'll never find a middle ground. Which is fine by me. I don't see a reason to bend. We've already been bent over enough.

The one thing I take away from this is that the pirates think music should be free and copies are not hurting the industry.

Fine. No point in arguing with that. Free is free. How can you negotiate?

But I'm not interested in finding a new way. Criminals understand just a few things. Punishment and imprisonment. It's always been that way and it will always be that way.

Change the rules. Enforce the rules and you'll change the behavior.

There's an honesty jar at a deli I go to for people who are buying the newspaper. And it seems to work. So they stick with it. We've tried the honesty jar with music. It doesn't work. Shutting down sites is the only answer. Sorry.

this is right on.

[Don Hills]

Originally Posted by rack gear

thanks don, but the question was actually for undertow who also supports closing the loop hole in the DMCA. ...

I chose to reply to that post rather than your earlier reply to me, in order to keep the subthread together. Here's the relevant part of your earlier post::

Originally Posted by rack gear

... thanks don, and as I describe content is more than happy to police given the tools and authority to do so. which is also to my point of closing the loophole in the DMCA and never having to send a takedown notice more than ONCE per site, per file... that would be a damn good start. ...

Back to the present:

Originally Posted by rack gear

...
only as hard as it makes if for consumers to find it. it cuts both ways... there is no magic power that allows end users to see the and understand what it is and not enforcement... and at that point, the end user is inconvenienced probably more than enforcement... once it's just enough of a PITA, it might just be less of a hassle to pay the 99 cents legally for a song...

The point that is that obfuscation doesn't have to make it harder for the "consumer" to find it. The minimal extra work is done by the uploader. Some of Jason's schemes would make it harder for the casual downloader, as you point out, but there's no need to go to such lengths.

[rack gear]

Originally Posted by Don Hills

The point that is that obfuscation doesn't have to make it harder for the "consumer" to find it. The minimal extra work is done by the uploader. Some of Jason's schemes would make it harder for the casual downloader, as you point out, but there's no need to go to such lengths.

I think you are agreeing with me, but I'm not sure!?

[axs1]

Originally Posted by rack gear

laughable as this is, the same could be said of undertow.

Whats laughable is your inability to have a real discussion. You're a dinosaur, or the people you represent are, anyway. You bring absolutely nothing to the table, besides endless one sided cowboy slogans and us and them rhetoric. Some of us understand that we have to adapt, and some of us realize the days of champagne and roses as an artist in this industry are over.
Think its you and your posse that need to - eh - buckle up! Cause you're the ones on the losing side of all of this. Yeehaw!