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| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 160 responses total. |
mcnally
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response 55 of 160:
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Oct 11 23:12 UTC 2002 |
About ten or fifteen years ago, during the height of the VCR boom,
one of the early movie studios which had become more or less defunct
(perhaps Republic?) accidentally let the copyright on a great deal
of material lapse because whoever owned the rights neglected to
renew them. All of a sudden the market was flooded with inexpensive
reproductions of movies like "It's a Wonderful Life" and movies that
hadn't been broadcast on television in years were rediscovered,
while the ones that had been popular enough to still show (like "It's
a Wonderful Life") became so commonly aired that people started to
make jokes about it.
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russ
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response 56 of 160:
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Oct 12 02:19 UTC 2002 |
The New York Times ran an editorial opining that the Sonny Bono
\C\o\n\s\u\m\e\r\ \E\x\t\o\r\t\i\o\n Copyright Extension Act
should be held to be unconstitutional. I hope the Court agrees.
Re #50: The argument that public-domain works lose all commercial
value is blatantly false on its face; just look at the great
commercial revenues reaped by Disney on Victor Hugo's works shortly
after they entered the public domain. Of course, Disney will argue
that Steamboat Willie and the Hunchback of Notre Dame have nothing
in common. I hope the Court is smart enough to see through that.
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scott
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response 57 of 160:
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Oct 12 03:16 UTC 2002 |
Or how Disney took public domain stories like "Snow White and the Seven
Dwarves" and made a bunch of money, but is horrified that somebody might make
some money from Disney property in public domain?
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krj
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response 58 of 160:
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Oct 13 04:28 UTC 2002 |
"Global CD Slump Accelerates"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/2319209.stm
"The value of music sold dropped by 9.2% in the first half
of 2002, the International Federation of the Phonographic
Industry (IFPI) has said.... The slump follows a 5%
drop in 2001."
((The IFPI is the international version of the RIAA.))
A sidebar lists declines for several markets for first half 2002:
US: down 6.8%
Japan: down 14.2%
UK: down 6.2% (UK was up about 5% last year)
France: up 5.2% (!!!)
Western Europe total: down 7.5%
Asia total: down 15.6%
These are money values, not units sold.
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gull
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response 59 of 160:
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Oct 14 13:06 UTC 2002 |
The Register is reporting that HR.5469, the bill that was supposed to save
online webcasting, has been heavily amended in a backroom deal with a "cabal
of thirteen small commercial operations." Most webcasters now feel that the
bill will merely ensure only the largest commercial webcasters survive. It
also apparently would require, for the first time, that educational and
religious terrestrial stations (meaning regular radio stations) pay
performance royalties, though the article only mentions that in passing.
http://www.theregus.com/content/6/26615.html
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polytarp
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response 60 of 160:
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Oct 14 13:55 UTC 2002 |
This response has been erased.
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mxyzptlk
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response 61 of 160:
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Oct 16 11:52 UTC 2002 |
The Register is one small notch above the Enquirer. If it was valid,
they probably reprinted or stole from someone else.
Just venting...
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gull
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response 62 of 160:
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Oct 16 13:34 UTC 2002 |
Most Internet news sites just reprint stuff from other places. My
expectations of them are pretty low -- The Register is more consistantly
accurate than Slashdot, and doesn't have the annoying comments, which is
why I started reading it. Like Slashdot and Security Focus, I mostly
use it as a convenient overview of interesting stuff other sites are
reporting on, because I don't have time to read them all.
A couple more items that came up there recently (mxyzptlk can skip these):
More on HR.5469, including comments from some of the people involved.
The bill is not expected to pass, due to opposition from terrestrial
broadcasters.
http://www.theregus.com/content/6/26644.html
An odd situation involving a RedHat errata and the DMCA. The headline
doesn't really tell the story on this one -- you have to dig in to find
what's really going on:
http://www.theregus.com/content/4/26656.html
Basically, RedHat is issuing a kernel bugfix errata for a
security-related bug. But if you're in the U.S., they can't tell you
what the bug is. The reason is the person who discovered it is afraid
of DMCA prosecution, and has copyrighted his analysis with a license
that stipulates only non-U.S. citizens can read it.
(Okay, mxyzptlk can start reading again.)
Dimitri Skylarov, the Russian programmer prosecuted under the DMCA for
breaking Adobe's eBook cipher, is once again in kind of a bind. He's
legally required to attend a trial in the U.S. and testify against his
employer ElcomSoft in the U.S. But the American Embassy in Moscow has
denied him a visa.
http://www.planetpdf.com/mainpage.asp?webpageid=2400
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scott
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response 63 of 160:
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Oct 16 15:19 UTC 2002 |
The Register is a bit like Hunter S. Thompson's early 70's political writing
in Rolling Stone. The regular publications would say "Senator X gave a speech
where he said Y", while Thompson made a point of neglecting the official
details in favor of his own personal observations, such as "A disturbingly
offbalanced Senator X was quickly hustled out to make yet another stump speech
written by his handlers, after which he was pulled out of sight and hopefully
taken to a hospital".
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krj
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response 64 of 160:
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Oct 21 19:33 UTC 2002 |
Fox News reports that Whitney Houston's new CD has leaked out on the
net one month in advance of its official release date. Whitney was
paid gazillions of dollars for her new contract, and the label is
worried the early release will damage sales. Such early exposure
didn't hurt Wilco or Radiohead, both of whom had great sales of
material widely distributed on the net, but maybe the market for
critical-fave rock bands works differently than the market for
pop/r&b divas.
Carlos Santana's new album has also leaked, just a week before
official release.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,66212,00.html
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krj
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response 65 of 160:
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Oct 22 04:02 UTC 2002 |
Rolling Stone has a piece on some of the upcoming fall releases.
The article says that the labels used promtional pricing as low
as $9/disc (where??) to boost sales. But we should expect to
pay about $20/disc for big name releases in the fall.
"Label sources say that because of the industry's slump
-- 2002 sales are off almost ten percent -- they can't
afford to lower prices."
I dunno, that just put a big smile on my face.
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/newsarticle.asp?nid=16879&afl=mnew
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krj
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response 66 of 160:
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Oct 22 04:04 UTC 2002 |
(Um, the labels used promotional prices this summer, I left that phrase
out.)
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mdw
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response 67 of 160:
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Oct 22 04:58 UTC 2002 |
Sounds to me like they should be anticipating more of a slump.
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other
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response 68 of 160:
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Oct 22 07:46 UTC 2002 |
It would be nice to see the RIAA's funding basis dry up like a puddle at
nuclear ground zero.
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gull
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response 69 of 160:
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Oct 22 13:04 UTC 2002 |
I kind of wish they'd just accept the law of supply and demand as it
relates to pricing, instead of trying to prop up prices with
legislation. I worry about the legislative damage a dying RIAA could do.
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mcnally
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response 70 of 160:
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Oct 22 13:39 UTC 2002 |
The "law of supply and demand" is exactly their problem now that
it's technologically trivial to make nearly limitless copies of
the product they sell.
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gull
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response 71 of 160:
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Oct 22 19:06 UTC 2002 |
My point is that if they weren't still trying to fix the price at $16
per disc, they wouldn't be having so much trouble. I suspect fewer
people would download music and burn it to CDs if CDs weren't so
expensive. There's room for them to make a profit, just not the huge
profit they're used to.
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anderyn
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response 72 of 160:
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Oct 22 19:30 UTC 2002 |
I would buy a lot of CDs that I don't now if they were $15/16 a disc reliably.
That seems fair and reasonable enough to me. Cheaper would be nice, but I
would feel as if I were spending an okay amount if they were a straight $15
or $16 per.
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slynne
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response 73 of 160:
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Oct 22 20:41 UTC 2002 |
Yeah, a lot of cd's are more like $19
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dbratman
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response 74 of 160:
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Oct 23 00:05 UTC 2002 |
"because of the industry's slump ... they can't afford to lower prices."
OK, I admit I wasn't the top student in my econ class, but that's a
direct contradiction to my limited understanding of the law of supply
and demand.
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other
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response 75 of 160:
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Oct 23 02:02 UTC 2002 |
It depends on the false assumptions they bring to plan.
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polygon
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response 76 of 160:
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Oct 23 04:58 UTC 2002 |
They think of themselves as being like the health care industry. They
have a monopoly on music, so that supply and demand stuff doesn't apply.
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jazz
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response 77 of 160:
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Oct 23 13:25 UTC 2002 |
I particularly love how the RIAA tries to make it look like Napster
has hurt their business to the point to which they have to take drastic
measures, but every indicator I've seen, including their yearly profit, says
otherwise.
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gull
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response 78 of 160:
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Oct 23 15:11 UTC 2002 |
Interesting how the decline started *before* Napster was released, too,
isn't it? Apparently it not only allows people to share files, it can
go back in time, too.
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scott
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response 79 of 160:
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Oct 23 15:47 UTC 2002 |
Harrumph. Those people were holding off buying CDs, waiting for Napster.
Well, I couldn't find it, but I read an item recently claiming the whole RIAA
"piracy" fight was really intended to stifle small competitors, especially
in Web radio.
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