Robin Hood Philosophy?

Reading these posts is like trying to learn a new language! I have no idea what some of this stuff is your talking about. A ceiling cat on a cupcake table? Now if you want to talk about Olivier in Rebecca I'm your guy!
Thomas

Hehe. These people certainly have alot of spare time.

Peter

I have to disagree with you James, with as much limited crap that gets released, and the budget being so small, I have no moral issues with downloading stuff that I know will be available for a few years and that I can always buy eventually when the money comes around. Plus DLing helps weed out the scores you don't like, saves you money from getting disappointed and then not making $$ back on the sell. I don't really see the huge difference between in print stuff and out of print stuff.

Is it illegal? Of course it is, but so is taping stuff off TV and not destroying it after one viewing. Something that a lot of people don't seem to have as much of an ethical issue with.

Bully. What a desperately underused word! I love it.

Folks! If you don't understand that this kind of piracy ultimately can KILL a small label like MovieScore Media, then I don't know what to say. Doing one copy for a friend is one thing (this is "old school" and perfectly allright in my opinion), but putting a link to an album on the internet for everyone and anyone to download without allowing one single cent to go back to the composer, the record label or the film company is SERIOUSLY HURTING the business.

If you don't see that, I can tell you from personal experience that it is! Case in point: A few of our albums have not sold as good as I was hoping, and those titles are exactly the ones that I can find on various torrent sites and soundtrack blogs! I just can't see this as pure coincidence.

From a philosophical perspective, I can understand that people download stuff that is available for free. It's just one click away. The BIG problem is the idiots who make this music available in the first place, posting torrents or links to downloadable albums.

I am not alone fearing the worst. I did an article with Robert Townson (Varese Sarabande) on the subject. You should read it here and give it some thought: http://www.filmmusicmag.com/?p=109

mc

I'd like to see some proper evidence instead of speculation and assertions. Seems that the file sharers say that the promotional effect increase sales and the other side say that file sharing decrease sales. There's so much bias in this discussion and everyone somehow ends up seeing exactly what they want to see. How about some skepticism? How about recognizing that there are many factors involved and that it's no simple matter to estimate how the sales are affected? Below are some inestimable, possible factors, I'm sure one can think of others.

*We don't know how many of people who have downloaded an album freely would have bought the album had it not been available to download.
*We don't know how many people who ends up buying an album due to being impressed by it after downloading it freely online, and prefering the better quality of a CD, liner notes and the physical product.
*We don't know how many people buy albums that they otherwise wouldn't have, because they gain respect, recognition and people to trade with for making the album available to others online.
*We don't know how much extra buzz there are on message boards and blogs concerning certain albums due to file sharing and more people therefore having heard the album and having an opinion about it. We don't know how many extra sales such buzz results in.

No doubt there are both factors that can increase sales and factors that can decrease sales. Trouble is, these factors are almost impossible to estimate. What we need is some quality studies. Only one I found so far is this one, which seems to indicate that file sharing can have both positive and negative effects on sales. No doubt more research is needed before any of us can take any definite conclusion.

Peter

Martijn, when you say that the industry should change - in what way? In what way do you feel that MovieScore Media should change, for instance? Should we give away all music freely on the internet (if "customers" are already doing that, why not do it ourselves) and then hope that it will create so much buzz that people will come running after the CD?

Just interested in hearing your thoughts.



mc

Thanks for the links. I think the washington post link shows quite well the uncertainties involved by citing conflicting studies. The Harvard study says that there's a positive correlation between file sharing and downloading among popular music, while there seem to be a small negative correlation with respect to niche audiences. I'd like to read the study itself though, it's a bit difficult estimating its validity from a press release.

I think that the best we can conclude from the links presented so far is that there are alot of uncertainty, and more interestingly, that the effects of file sharing aren't in any way as pronounced as the music industry fears.

Peter

I wonder if this is really the way of the future... The good thing about the label is that it offers scores in mp3 as well as cd's, but not all of them. I would at least buy 5 scores if only they were available on cd... I do not intend to pay for mp3's only, not ever. And I'm a person who often sticks with most of its believes. If someone ought to do a proper study about it, they should also include people who might stop buying music if its mp3 only. It amazes me that it's rarely mentioned, because this can also make a significant difference.

Joep, i doubt it's as big a number as you think. If peopel are givne the ultimatum to either pay for downloads, or stop listening to music, I doubt they're going to stop listening to music.

Of course, maybe the older generation already has a gigantic amount of CDs and would retire, but from peopel who are fans of current films and new music? It's just not going to happen....

Perhaps I'm overrating the number of people. But I think your ultmatum example is rather pour tjguitar.

......and for the so famous Mr.Varese as well.

Yes, that's what I meant. But your example was bad, because it isn't like;
-if people won't download mp3's for money, they don't listen to music.

It's more like;
-if some people won't download mp3's for money, and have no acces to a cd release, they can still download the music for free and listen to the music.

I can see that influencing the business.

I too respect Mikael!!! What is to prevent a company like Intrada from releasing a very limited amount of a CD, say 500 copies at a really premium price, such as $24.95 and then also offering a 320 lossless download for a lot less say $12.95. This would satisfy the old buyer who is still using his 1950's rotary phone and tube radio yet allow anyone to purchase the music, satisfying the listener. Am I way off base?
Thomas

How are they going to download the music for free if nobody releases the CDs to be ripped from?

Nobody's going to PAY for downloads and then LEAK it for everyone else. Well, maybe they would, just seems like it would go against the principle of those actually paying for it, lol. maybe not. maybe people woudl team up and go halvsies and split the bill or something.