Dragaera

Artificial release dates and online publishing

Dennis Higbee den at monger.net
Tue Dec 10 16:54:59 PST 2002

On Wed, 11 Dec 2002, Andrew Bailey wrote:

[Piracy]

> On other things, while it may and probably is true that CDs are 
> overpriced, this doesn't in any way justify piracy. Sure the RIAA is on 
> a crusade to maintain its monopoly on the distribution of music, and has
> behaved badly IMHO, but thats capitalism[1] for you.

My question (well, one of them) is, "Who is defining the term 'piracy' as 
it relates to media?"  After all, fair use covers the creation of copies 
using cassette tapes, so why doesn't it cover the creation of electronic
copies?

> There are many costs associated with any kind of artistic promotion. If 
> we look at say the movie industry, not every film will make money ( can 
> anyone say waterworld ), so the films that DO make money have to 
> subsidise those that don't. And this will be factored into prices.

And why does the consumer bear the cost for the industry failing to spend 
its money wisely?  When a record company complains that they have to get a 
new artist to go gold before they can turn a profit, I'm forced to wonder 
why they're pleading poverty at the same time they're paying Mariah Carey 
$29 million dollars NOT to record for them.  (Though I could think of 
worse uses for $29 million dollars, except that it doesn't prevent her 
>from recording for someone else.)
 
> And interestingly enough piracy is almost certainly a price affecting 
> factor in itself, in the same way that shoplifting is.

Nope.  The cost is based on what the record companies think the market can 
bear.  Record companies and retailers might use shrinkage and "piracy" to 
justify price hikes, but they're raising prices because they think they 
can make more money.

> If more people bought CD rather than trading on the internet, in theory 
> the prices should come down, though this is unlikely due to the fact 
> that the music industry is an Oligarchy and probably lacks true compition.

You said it yourself.  No matter how many people buy CDs the record 
companies won't lower prices.  Why should they?  There's no one competing 
with them.  Here's a question:  Is it moral to bypass the record company 
system totally and simply send the artist five bucks every time one DLs 
an album full of songs?  And what would the RIAA do if such actions became 
common?

There's an excellent article on piracy from the artist's perspective 
written by Janis Ian.  Here's a link:

http://www.janisian.com/article-internet_debacle.html

-Dennis