The Pirate Bay founders sentenced to prison.

[son_ov_hades]

Yeah but you have to pay back all the advances, which can be hundreds of thousands, before you make anything.

[JC]

The suits, as Ugly calls them, are getting hit twice these days: P2P means consumers aren't paying for music, and artists are finding the medium between the music industry's controlled top-down method and P2P's anarchic bottom-up sharing to release their music independently -- like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails have done but also like MySpace and iTunes allow. The business is becoming less about music sales and more about successful self-promotion, profitting from merch and concerts and, increasingly, endorsements. I think of a band like Cloud Cult and its song in an Esurance commercial or those Target commercials that push artists and their music alongside shopping at Target.

Also, what gets me is that some artists use P2P to promote themselves by releasing a song or two on these networks. I downloaded a song the other day that had a small ad attached to the end of it.

The chaos in the music industry is making things fun for the consumer -- at least for me.

[PatMan33]

I can't imagine that prison in Sweden is all that terrible. Maybe I'll go there for my vacation.

[mgman]

They think they can take down piracy and stop its activities.

Not as a good thing, nor as a bad thing, piracy will never be stopped, nor will it stop. For as long as we are, piracy will live and go on.

At this point there really is no reason to end piracy; it has a life of its own.

[nintendodork]

I can't even start to think how much money Nintendo gets for all of their games (Not to mention their merchandise)...and bands only end up getting a dollar for music albums...

Okay, what gives? Is the downloading "market" really destroying anything?

This may eventually form into it's own thread...but...I hate how iTunes is now charging more/less money based on a song's popularity It's stupid.

[Jedi Master Baiter]

They're doing that now?

Are you sure it's not the other way around & them selling songs for less because they sell less? I can see some sense in that...

not like I care, 'cause I use Amazon regardless. 

[Trium Shockwave]

It's not iTunes that decided that pricing, it was the record industry. Notice Amazon, Walmart and others just adopted the same pricing. In iTunes specific case, Apple held the line on 99¢ for a really long time. They basically told the record labels to deal with it. So, the industry pulled a strong arm tactic and started letting Amazon and others sell unprotected music, while refusing to allow the same on iTunes. They held that over Apple's head to get the variable pricing they wanted.

Of course, the part everyone seems to be missing with this story, is that some songs are now less than 99¢. What's really baffling though is that the same song will be at different price points on the different services. So... shop around I guess.

[UglyJoe]

So, the industry pulled a strong arm tactic and started letting Amazon and others sell unprotected music, while refusing to allow the same on iTunes. They held that over Apple's head to get the variable pricing they wanted.

You make it sound as if Jobs and co. really *wanted* DRM-free music in their store.  Don't forget that every DRM-encoded song bought in iTunes would *only* play on an iPod or on a computer with iTunes on it.  Apple used DRM to their advantage and would still be doing so if the mp3-buying public hadn't finally realized why DRM is so annoying.

[nintendodork]

They're doing that now?

Are you sure it's not the other way around & them selling songs for less because they sell less? I can see some sense in that...

not like I care, 'cause I use Amazon regardless. 

Songs go as the following:
Indie/unheard of songs: $.69
Regular songs: $.99
Popular songs: $1.29

This is, of course, based on Apple, so whatever they *think* is popular, then that's how they accordingly price it.


Also,

Don't forget that every DRM-encoded song bought in iTunes would *only* play on an iPod or on a computer with iTunes on it. 

If you burn songs to a blank CD, then put them back on the computer, they are no longer DRM'd

[UglyJoe]

If you burn songs to a blank CD, then put them back on the computer, they are no longer DRM'd

Yes, but then it's no longer the same.  The quality of the audio has dropped significantly as you've recompressed a compressed song.

[manuel]

Yeah, but it's better than nothing. 
And you'd be surprised how many people can't hear a difference (shitty speakers) or simply don't care. 

[JC]

I'm one of those people who can't hear the difference. I can tell the quality difference between something recorded in the '50s compared to something more recent, but I can't tell the difference between bit rates or whatever it's called. I'm not so interested in the details as I am in the overall composition.

[UglyJoe]

Yeah, I know most people can't tell the difference.  Younger generations even seem to *prefer* the overly-compressed sound:

http://www.audioholics.com/news/industry-news/kids-prefer-poor-quality-mp3

[133MHz]

I can hear the difference in my home stereo system or my PC speaker setup (which is no more than a common household stereo and a 3.5 mm to RCA adapter ), but for killing time on the subway with a Chinese MP3 player and $5 earbud headphones, I can't and I don't care either. In fact I downsample the MP3s going into my portable player to be able to fit more of them in the player's limited storage space.

[JC]

The only thing that annoys me are those digitalized vinyl pops or a slight error in an audio file that causes something similar, even if it lasts for just a fraction of a second. (Guess this could go in the annoyances thread.) The unfortunate part of P2P downloading is that you often run into the same track, even years later, with the same error.