krj
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response 139 of 143:
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Jun 17 16:57 UTC 2001 |
Another summary article on recent developments with the big record
companies seizing control:
http://www.economist.com/business/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=656204
Note that the Universal/Sony "Duet" vaporware online service has
now been renamed "pressplay."
Quote on how the legitimate download systems may still produce a
substantial revenue squeeze for the labels:
"Even at $20-$30 a month, for unlimited downloads, the record
companies could expect a steep drop in revenues per track:
consumers in America now pay over $1 per track on a CD album,
which will often contain songs they would never choose to pay for."
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scg
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response 141 of 143:
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Jun 17 17:16 UTC 2001 |
Yes, making it easy to download tracks probably causes people to download more
of them. That's a deceptive measurement, though, since it's the initial
production, not each downloaded copy, that costs the record companies
significant amounts of money. It seems to me that the real question in terms
of whether the record companies would gain or lose revenue from a $30 per
month unlimited subscription service is whether the typical customer of that
service would otherwise be spending $30 per month on CDs.
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krj
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response 142 of 143:
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Jun 22 20:07 UTC 2001 |
Eric in resp:138, on international jurisdiction over American ISPs:
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,5093109,00.html?chkpt=zdnn_tp_
This ZDnet story is about The Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and
Foreign Judgements, a proposed treaty.
"'In a nutshell, it will strangle the Internet with a suffocating
blanket of overlapping jurisdictional claims, expose every Web
page publisher to liabilities for libel, defamation and other
speech offenses from virtually any country, (and) effectively strip
Internet service providers of protections from litigation over the
content they carry," Jamie Love, director of Ralph Nader's
Consumer Project on Technology (CPT), wrote in a report after the
meeting."
...
"The Hague treaty differs... it is much broader, requiring participants
to agree to enforce each others' laws on a variety of topics.
As it stands, the treaty would require courts to enforce the commercial
laws of the convention's 52 member nations, even if they prohibit actions
that are legal under local laws."
"Delegates did not soften speech laws to provide for countries that value
the exchange of information. In addition, they strengthened some
intellectual property provisions--over the objections of consumer groups.
"'The bottom line is that it didn't go well,' said Barry Steinhardt,
associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union... He said that
although American delegates listened to free-speech worries, most others
did not.
"CPT's Love agreed. "We got our ass kicked," he said. 'It was a bad two
weeks for us.'
"Free-speech advocates fear US citizens could lose many of their rights if
all web sites have to ensure they are following the narrowest laws, such
as those of, say, China or Morocco."
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