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| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 160 responses total. |
jazz
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response 81 of 160:
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Oct 23 16:20 UTC 2002 |
That's something that's true at the moment, but five or ten years from
now, you may well have realtime access to 144 or 192kbps mp3 quality audio
streams in realtime to the average American user.
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gull
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response 82 of 160:
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Oct 23 18:09 UTC 2002 |
No MP3 stream is a "perfect digital copy", though. It's lossy.
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keesan
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response 83 of 160:
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Oct 23 18:22 UTC 2002 |
I hope 32K sounds a lot better than the 16 20 and 24K I have been hearing
(which is still less hissy than the mono broadcast radio I listen to since
there are no longer any local classical stations). I have seen 128K stations
listed already.
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jazz
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response 84 of 160:
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Oct 23 18:39 UTC 2002 |
MP3 streams are lossy compression, but considering that (a) it's
usually "good enough" for most listeners, and that (b) a MP3 stream from a
MP3 source is a perfect digital copy ...
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krj
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response 85 of 160:
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Oct 23 18:52 UTC 2002 |
(I had a response lost by a connection lockup which was going to say
essentially what jazz did in resp:81 :: we assume that the bandwidth
available to home users is only going to get better, and the sound
quality of Internet radio will only get better. So it's not irrational
for the music business to be planning for this future in which
digital streams are close enough to CD quality for most people; we've
already seen that a tremendous number of people find MP3 files
"good enough.")
The essay Scott mentions in resp:79 is most likely titled
"Raising the barriers to entry" and it's at:
http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/2002/raising.html
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russ
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response 86 of 160:
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Oct 24 23:04 UTC 2002 |
Re #81: What gull said. That's no excuse for writing a law which treats
a stream which is degraded far worse than a cassette recording of an FM
broadcast the same as the .WAV file straight off the CD. If you're
going to argue that "perfect copies" are the problem, then you shouldn't
be applying the same law to grossly imperfect copies.
Of course, this law is more about restraint of competition for listeners
and attempting to dictate musical tastes than "piracy". That's why it's
important to puncture the falsehoods around the RIAA's case.
Re #85: Then perhaps a rational law would allow no-royalty broadcasting
above a certain rate of distortion. That would allow small webcasters
to get started on the cheap, and work their way up to high-quality streams
as the revenue appears to pay for it.
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tpryan
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response 87 of 160:
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Oct 29 22:13 UTC 2002 |
If an internet radio site has a maximum of say, 128 listeners,
it is negligeble to a small FM station that usually reach 12,800 listeners
(small town) or or 128,000. What are the royality/air-play rates those
stations pay?
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gull
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response 88 of 160:
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Oct 30 00:33 UTC 2002 |
Radio stations only pay songwriter royalties, not the record company
royalties that are being proposed for Internet stations.
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krj
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response 89 of 160:
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Nov 7 06:57 UTC 2002 |
Assorted sales news: A story reports that online sales of CDs
have taken a sharp nosedive this year, down 25% from last year,
which is much sharper than sales overall.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20021104/ap_on_hi_te/onli
ne_music_sales_1
(note the URL wrapped)
Meanwhile, USA Today reports that while overall CD sales are down
over 10% this year, country music sales are *up* 5%.
This correlates with sales being up at Wal-Mart and other
"rack accounts;" such retailers sell about half of the
country sales.
Is this the effect described by Moby: would country music fans
be less computer-literate than rock and rap fans?
Or is this evidence that what's going on is a huge shift in
public tastes?
http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/2002-11-06-cover-country_x.htm
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tpryan
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response 90 of 160:
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Nov 7 23:16 UTC 2002 |
The overall quality of country artist's CDs could be getting
better. In other words, more satisfaction with the whole CD package
instead of buying the album for the one or two tunes you like.
While the overall audience for country music might be
remaining stable, there may be a change in that new audience
members are more likely to buy CDs ?Converts from pop buying
habits?
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anderyn
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response 91 of 160:
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Nov 8 14:31 UTC 2002 |
I know that I've actually gone out and bought at least three country
albums in the last year or two. That's a big jump up from zero, which is
what it had bee n for many years.
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gull
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response 92 of 160:
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Nov 11 15:05 UTC 2002 |
This guy is going to get clobbered. I wish him well, but he has about
the same chances as a goldfish in a blender:
http://online.securityfocus.com/news/1608
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other
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response 93 of 160:
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Nov 11 22:53 UTC 2002 |
Gotta give him credit for chutzpah.
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krj
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response 94 of 160:
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Nov 13 19:52 UTC 2002 |
The Register had a story on this about a week ago which seemed a little
sketchy. However, the website listed below appears to be official,
unless it's a well-crafted hoax using BMG trademarks.
BMG is announcing its plans to copy-prevent all its CDs in Europe.
http://www.bmg-copycontrol.info
The Register also had a second story about EMI making similar moves.
If The Register was right on the BMG story, odds are good they're
right on the EMI one as well.
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jmsaul
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response 95 of 160:
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Nov 14 01:18 UTC 2002 |
What a great strategy. That'll certainly increase CD sales.
Huh?
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jazz
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response 96 of 160:
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Nov 14 14:21 UTC 2002 |
Isn't BMG's initiative related to Cactus, which has already been
compromised?
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krj
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response 97 of 160:
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Nov 16 06:53 UTC 2002 |
It seems that Roxio, the CD burner software maker, is going to buy
the assets of Napster for $5 million. As I expected, this is
substantially less than the $8 million offered by BMG; the bankruptcy
court was convinced to rule that the BMG offer was a sweetheart
deal which wasn't maximizing value for the creditors.
(I argue that the record companies, which made this argument in their
role as holders of damage awards against Napster, didn't care that
they were going to get less money in the bankruptcy: instead,
the record companies were trying to screw the other creditors,
mostly Napster's lawyers, as much as possible. This seems to me to
be a serious perversion of the bankruptcy laws; the rejection of
the BMG offer by the court was supposed to lead to *better* offers.)
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-965960.html?tag=lh
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/23/28126.html
-----
Followup on resp:89, on the report of a study claiming a sharp decline
in the Internet CD ordering business. The first reports claimed
a 25% decline in sales for the first three quarters of 2002, relative
to the same period in 2001. The NY Times had a story which was even
more alarmist: a 39% decline for the third quarter, relative to
2001, and the base period in 2001 includes the weeks after the
September 11 attacks, when US entertainment spending dried up
for a few weeks.
But the bottom of the Times report was taken up with reports by Amazon, the
dominant online CD retailer, and from CD Universe (#5 in the field, I think)
saying that their sales were doing just fine. This doesn't make sense:
if sales are down 25-39%, we should see online retailers folding;
we shouldn't see reports of sales holding steady.
So I'm suspecting the study reporting such a sharp sales decline online
is bogus.
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orinoco
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response 98 of 160:
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Nov 16 16:26 UTC 2002 |
(It could be that the decline is killing off the small retailers, and big
names like Amazon are hanging on okay. Or, yeah, it could be that the report
is full of it.)
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anderyn
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response 99 of 160:
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Nov 17 04:18 UTC 2002 |
I dunno. I buy CDs online from small retailers more than not. But then I like
to buy odd and obscure stuff when I get music -- folk music, from other
countries, that's not available on Amazon. I haven't gotten that much bought
music this year -- and most of that has been at a brick-and-mortar store, or
from the artist directly, though. (OhMIGawd, I just figured it out. It's all
my fault! I'm the reason they think all the sales are declining! I haven't
been out there spending money on CDs so the slump is all my fault! I must go
hang my head in shame now.)
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orinoco
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response 100 of 160:
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Nov 18 14:47 UTC 2002 |
Uh, yeah, Twila. And because of you, the Terrorists Have Already Won. ;)
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gull
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response 101 of 160:
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Nov 18 15:33 UTC 2002 |
I rarely buy new CDs from "brick and mortar" stores, these days. They
rarely seem to have what I want in stock, and if I have to special-order
I might as well cut out the middle man and go straight to Amazon or
CDNOW. When I go to a record store these days, it's usually to buy used
CDs.
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scott
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response 102 of 160:
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Nov 18 16:48 UTC 2002 |
Actually I've bought a few LPs from the ReUse Center ($1 each, which is high
by garage-sale standards) and found some pretty cool music - Burt Bachrach
Plays His Hits, Perspectives in Percussion vol 2 (one of those cool records
they made to push stereo hi-fi).
</keesan>
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polytarp
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response 103 of 160:
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Nov 18 20:20 UTC 2002 |
gulag
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keesan
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response 104 of 160:
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Nov 18 20:43 UTC 2002 |
Keesan buys her LPs by the bagful from the library booksale at about 10 cents
each at the winter and spring clearout sales, but I think they are normally
50 cents each and they have a large selection.
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anderyn
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response 105 of 160:
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Nov 18 21:13 UTC 2002 |
I don't buy lps, although I do own quite a few. I also don't buy cassettes
any more, although I do have several machines that can and do play them. I
have probably several hundred of each in the house, and then there are the
CDs. I don't think I actually *need* to get any more music, but I certainly
want to get more!
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