Anonymous attacking Sony for supporting SOPA

Kickflip said:

I think if a bill like SOPA passed, entertainment companies would work to offer more at home options. Right now, like you say, it isn't worth it to them because the second they put something online, another site can rip it or copy it and it can stay up for longer periods of time before any action is taken. There is a lot of paperwork to take down a site. Its giving no incentive to provide cheap alternatives for online viewing.

Imagine an account where you could pre-load $20.00, and it would deduct $2.00 per viewing of an online movie if its older, and $5.00 if its still in theater (2 week delay from theater release date)? I would use that for sure. If pirating weren't an issue, I think that would be fully possible.

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You are completely correct, and in this case I am in complete agreement.

But whose at fault here, and who should bear the responsibility? Is it the fault of the general public, or the entertainment industry for not being innovative.

They could have likely curbed piracy to a big extent had they just THOUGHT of doing something like this. They've left it to go on so far without innovating, that they've almost welcomed piracy.

Had they offered something like you have described, I am of the belief piracy wouldn't be such a big issue. If I could pay a small amount and download/stream a movie with good quality (***unlike the pirated torrents we currently have) then I would certainly pay for it. It's their fault for sitting on their ass and letting everything else advance.

Why should you, me or anyone else & all the companies now pay the price because they were not able to try and introduce these options for us?

420lounge said:

so you dont like pirated content? do you own of these big companies that have millions of dollars?...this is bhw

5 dollars for a release in theater? dreaming - imagine being able to get anything for free if you know where to look- oh wait that's the internet

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With respect, they could make a lot more money than they currently do by selling movie tickets at $5.00

What makes them more? 200 people viewing a movie in their cinema at $10.00 a pop, or 10,000 viewing it at $5.00 a pop in the comfort of their own home?

Personally, I would watch a LOT more movies if I could just load them up and watch them at home in comfort, without needing to drive or deal with idiots on the road & in the movies.

If they took the right approach, they could make a lot more money/profit.


EDIT: Has been an interesting discussion thus far, but I need to go and prepare for NYE events as it is 2.30PM here. Will check the thread later.

krzysiekz said:

Going by the whole 'links to copyrighted content' this forum right here would NOT exist. Thousands of other forums ALL OVER the net wouldn't exist. The impacts are insanely far reaching - and in this case, TOO far. It should be stopped. It is absolutely ridiculous.

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That simply isn't true at all. This forum could continue just fine if it only allowed moderated original content and no outside links to copyright content. We would just adjust our habits and behaviors. Your post is WAY too long to go into a full rebuttal, so I just wanted to focus on the main parts that I feel are important.

Forums can survive. People make up forums through original content. They would simply need more moderators. If forums were well moderated, they would have no issues. If YouTube was well moderated, it would have no issues. Communities would rely more on the users to help them survive.

The government isn't going to shut down a site for mistakenly linking to a site which hosts copyright material. Yes, they would have that right, but it doesn't mean they would act upon it without any logical thinking.

I think the problem is that people have become so accustomed to not respecting copyright laws and not caring about who actually worked hard to film something or get a news story, that is why we are so concerned about losing that.

I can look at it from BOTH sides of the coin. And I agree the SOPA bill probably isn't perfect, but the IDEA isn't so bad. I'm up for a "shakeup" of the internet. Why? Because it will lead to a lot more ORIGINAL content and ORIGINAL thoughts. Things need to get shaken up every now and then.

But instead of JUST opposing this bill, people NEED to post a counter proposal, or an amendment to it. If you JUST oppose it, you will eventually lose. But if you can compromise, everyone could end up winning.

What if SOPA only applied to personal websites, where only an Administrator or Moderator can post content, and the content isn't created through a pre-set algorithm, and isn't member created? In addition, all Forums and User content created sites and Social Networks needed to have a contact form where people could submit copyright complaints and required action within 24 hours or the government could intervene? To submit a complaint, you need to have a "verified" account within a corporation, or you need to confirm your contact phone number like a PVA before it will submit.

This way, the government still maintains the power, but companies have 24 hours to comply to requests, and certain sites can be further protected. Obviously its not perfect, but its proposing SOMETHING.

Kickflip said:

I think if a bill like SOPA passed, entertainment companies would work to offer more at home options. Right now, like you say, it isn't worth it to them because the second they put something online, another site can rip it or copy it and it can stay up for longer periods of time before any action is taken. There is a lot of paperwork to take down a site. Its giving no incentive to provide cheap alternatives for online viewing.

Imagine an account where you could pre-load $20.00, and it would deduct $2.00 per viewing of an online movie if its older, and $5.00 if its still in theater (2 week delay from theater release date)? I would use that for sure. If pirating weren't an issue, I think that would be fully possible.

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Kickflip, you have it backwards. SOPA will eliminate the need for innovation. "It's not worth it for them"? Come on, was it not worth it for Apple to create iTunes? Did it not flourish? 80% of people who were using Napster were doing it because the music industry FAILED to innovate in time and provide a cheap and convenient options to buy stuff legally. They wanted people to march down to their neighborhood Tower Records and plop down $14.99 for a piece of plastic. It was companies like Napster that forced innovation, because the music industry could no longer shackle people into doing business their way. All of a sudden they had to scramble, they had to evolve.

Did you see the Louis CK thread recently? Did you see how many people said they willingly paid the guy $5 for his work, even though they could just as easily torrent it? Because they knew that 98% of that money was going to him, and not to an overpriced leeching middleman. I can tell you personally that I have around 30gigs of music on an external harddrive since college, so I am just as guilty as any of pirating. However I have purchased CDs of artists I love, partly to support them, and party because I wanted the album artwork. Yes, there are tons of people who do not pay willingly, but 98% of those people are not going to buy the music they are pirating anyway.

My point is that 90% of the people who are able to pay are already doing it, partly for the convenience (now that it is actually more convenient to download from iTunes than to torrent) and partly because it is not worth it for them to take on the marginal legal risk + social stigma associated with pirating.

However what this bill entails is using a sledgehammer, where a scalpel is needed. Some kid posts a link on Twitter to a YouTube clip of the Simpsons that he likes, and now FOX has the legal power to shut down both Twitter AND Youtube. And if you think that they won't use that power, that is very naive.

Why would Fox file for Youtube to be shut down,when they have accounts there? And upload there trailers there for promotion.

Roparadise said:

Why would Fox file for Youtube to be shut down,when they have accounts there? And upload there trailers there for promotion.

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It's an example to illustrate a point. Don't be pedantic. Substitute Company X for FOX and Show Y for Simpsons.

Clash of the Moral codes

demongerbil said:

Kickflip, you have it backwards. SOPA will eliminate the need for innovation. "It's not worth it for them"? Come on, was it not worth it for Apple to create iTunes? Did it not flourish? 80% of people who were using Napster were doing it because the music industry FAILED to innovate in time and provide a cheap and convenient options to buy stuff legally. They wanted people to march down to their neighborhood Tower Records and plop down $14.99 for a piece of plastic. It was companies like Napster that forced innovation, because the music industry could no longer shackle people into doing business their way. All of a sudden they had to scramble, they had to evolve.

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Uhm. iTunes is a distribution point, not a music production company. iTunes flourished because the iPod was a hit. If iPods weren't a success, then iTunes would have disappeared. It happened with plenty of other things. People RARELY buy mp3 players anymore. Nobody even SAYS mp3 player, they just say ipod.

It is the music industries job to produce music. It is the motion picture industries job to produce movies. It is OUR job as consumers to REQUEST different distribution points, and for other companies to CREATE and MANAGE further distribution points.

If I told you 10 years ago I could rent a new release movie for $1.00, you would think I am mad. But now we have Redbox. Redbox is able to manage distribution so efficiently that they can pay full price for a DVD and make profit from a $1.00 rental (I know prices have recently risen, I worked for redbox for almost 2 years so its just a point.)

The movie industry didn't make $1.00 rentals possible. They actually tried to stop them. It took innovation from the distribution points to make it possible. Redbox still has to pay $15.00 to $18.00 to purchase the MAJORITY of their DVDs to rent to people.

My point of all of this is, don't try to blame the music industry or movie industry to lack of innovation. That simply isn't their job. The innovations will come from other sources. A lot of original music is posted on sites like YouTube. If we stop listening to the same copyrighted music all of the time, we will hear more interesting made for youtube hits that open our eyes to a whole new experience. Youtube will do more profit sharing with its partners, so more people will want to become partners and produce more original content.

To think SOPA eliminates the need more innovation and growth is quite an uneducated thought about this. It really frustrates me that you would think like that.

Convenience still sells. People would rather go WITHOUT something, then work hard to get it. If the movie companies can access more people through innovation, they will do it. They still have to compete amongst each other, which is why we will always have growth and innovation.

Kickflip said:

That simply isn't true at all. This forum could continue just fine if it only allowed moderated original content and no outside links to copyright content. We would just adjust our habits and behaviors. Your post is WAY too long to go into a full rebuttal, so I just wanted to focus on the main parts that I feel are important.

Forums can survive. People make up forums through original content. They would simply need more moderators. If forums were well moderated, they would have no issues. If YouTube was well moderated, it would have no issues. Communities would rely more on the users to help them survive.

The government isn't going to shut down a site for mistakenly linking to a site which hosts copyright material. Yes, they would have that right, but it doesn't mean they would act upon it without any logical thinking.

I think the problem is that people have become so accustomed to not respecting copyright laws and not caring about who actually worked hard to film something or get a news story, that is why we are so concerned about losing that.

I can look at it from BOTH sides of the coin. And I agree the SOPA bill probably isn't perfect, but the IDEA isn't so bad. I'm up for a "shakeup" of the internet. Why? Because it will lead to a lot more ORIGINAL content and ORIGINAL thoughts. Things need to get shaken up every now and then.

But instead of JUST opposing this bill, people NEED to post a counter proposal, or an amendment to it. If you JUST oppose it, you will eventually lose. But if you can compromise, everyone could end up winning.

What if SOPA only applied to personal websites, where only an Administrator or Moderator can post content, and the content isn't created through a pre-set algorithm, and isn't member created? In addition, all Forums and User content created sites and Social Networks needed to have a contact form where people could submit copyright complaints and required action within 24 hours or the government could intervene? To submit a complaint, you need to have a "verified" account within a corporation, or you need to confirm your contact phone number like a PVA before it will submit.

This way, the government still maintains the power, but companies have 24 hours to comply to requests, and certain sites can be further protected. Obviously its not perfect, but its proposing SOMETHING.

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While what you are saying is not absurd, it still doesn't make logical sense.

Because the entertainment industry, for the most part, was not innovative enough to capture it's audience efficiently - piracy became more and more common and widespread.

And now, going by your post, the forum & website owners are the ones who ultimately pay the price? How can you possibly believe that is fair? No one is complaining about the way YouTube or forums in general are run - why should forum owners and/or moderators take on a bigger responsibility to 'fix' something that isn't even a problem.

SOPA is the problem, as you have outlined. The bill needs to be re-written, you are correct - but it certainly should be re-written before ever being passed, and not firstly passed and then later re-written as you have previously (subjective - my interpretation) suggested.

I agree & disagree on you saying the SOPA bill ultimately needs to be passed, but with changes made to it. Even if changes are made to it, I still feel (and I could be horribly wrong) that the onus is on them.

Obviously they do not have direct control over people pirating movies, but they are the ones who do not offer us, the people, a way in which to enjoy their content at home, at a reasonable price. If we want to enjoy their content at home, we have to pirate it. They didn't even give us a choice - so how is it my responsibility, or the responsibility of the whole internet?

They need to wake up and realise that it is, with a risk of repeating myself, their lack of innovation that has led to this. They can try and stop the piracy all they want, but ultimately (at least from a personal perspective) that's not going to make me more likely to go to the movies to watch a movie, for example.

I know that with the above example I am treating it in a confined context, because SOPA extend much more than just movies - but that's the example I have for movies.

Anyway, maybe there should be a SOPA-type law passed - but the current law has a lot of flaws. Namely, the US Government AS WELL AS the entertainment industry having the power to take down the sites. You know, for a second I thought it was to stop pirating (which is why the entertainment industry has the power) - but what does the US Government have to do with it?

If the entertainment industry is already given the power, within the confines of the SOPA bill, to remove the pirating websites / offenders, then where does the US Government step in. As far as I am concerned, there is a need for concern with such an exception. Either it is to stop piracy and written in a way where it is easy to interpret & not "open to interpretation".

If they want to do it, I would say go for it - as you have suggested - but in it's current form, the law is too far reaching and has the potential to do a lot of harm (as we have now explored in this thread) to the general internet user and legitimate sites that run on user generated content. The burdon should be on the entertainment industry, not us or other legitimate websites.

They made the mistake, now they should fix it at their own cost. The internet & the people are just moving along with technology. It is time for the entertainment industry to catch up.

*Note: in this case I have talked about the entertainment industry almost exclusively, because they are the biggest lobbying group behind the bill.

Kickflip said:

Uhm. iTunes is a distribution point, not a music production company. iTunes flourished because the iPod was a hit. If iPods weren't a success, then iTunes would have disappeared. It happened with plenty of other things. People RARELY buy mp3 players anymore. Nobody even SAYS mp3 player, they just say ipod.

It is the music industries job to produce music. It is the motion picture industries job to produce movies. It is OUR job as consumers to REQUEST different distribution points, and for other companies to CREATE and MANAGE further distribution points.

If I told you 10 years ago I could rent a new release movie for $1.00, you would think I am mad. But now we have Redbox. Redbox is able to manage distribution so efficiently that they can pay full price for a DVD and make profit from a $1.00 rental (I know prices have recently risen, I worked for redbox for almost 2 years so its just a point.)

The movie industry didn't make $1.00 rentals possible. They actually tried to stop them. It took innovation from the distribution points to make it possible. Redbox still has to pay $15.00 to $18.00 to purchase the MAJORITY of their DVDs to rent to people.

My point of all of this is, don't try to blame the music industry or movie industry to lack of innovation. That simply isn't their job. The innovations will come from other sources. A lot of original music is posted on sites like YouTube. If we stop listening to the same copyrighted music all of the time, we will hear more interesting made for youtube hits that open our eyes to a whole new experience. Youtube will do more profit sharing with its partners, so more people will want to become partners and produce more original content.

To think SOPA eliminates the need more innovation and growth is quite an uneducated thought about this. It really frustrates me that you would think like that.

Convenience still sells. People would rather go WITHOUT something, then work hard to get it. If the movie companies can access more people through innovation, they will do it. They still have to compete amongst each other, which is why we will always have growth and innovation.

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I must say, that is some warped logic you are using.

The music industries job is not to produce music, it is to distribute and license and extract $ from it. It is the artists job to produce music (yes, I do realize we may be arguing semantics, and you could make a distinction between creation and "producing", but I take what you said at the literal sense, which I think is the way you meant it).

The point is music companies were a necessary evil for decades, when it was necessary to put up millions to record music, package it, ship it to stores, pay for marketing, radio stations etc etc etc.

With the advances in technology any kid with a phone camera can record themselves and put their voice on the internet. If they are talented enough they become famous. The NEED for a middleman has eroded, and it is they who are fighting for survival, for their piece of the pie, when they and everybody else is realizing that they are useless and contribute zero to the creative process.

The whole "well, artists will just stop creating if they can't get paid" argument is bullshit. And yes, I do realize you have not specifically used it, but is a staple of most pro-SOPA arguments I have seen. Most true artists don't do it for the $. They welcome many people listening to their music for free, they want it to be downloaded. Actually that is a great way for many bands to make it. If they got some album deal with some third rate distribution company and put out a CD for $12.99 noone would buy it. If they put it out there and people like it, there will be people who will pay them $ for it. Even successful bands like Radiohead have put out their albums for free, and guess what? People still paid them $ for it, because people LOVE their music.

True talent tends to rise to the top and make $. It is the mediocre that tries to force and lock people into choices that they do not want to make (it goes beyond music too).

Along the same lines, you have not addressed my point with Louis CK at all.

krzysiekz said:

Anyway, maybe there should be a SOPA-type law passed - but the current law has a lot of flaws. Namely, the US Government AS WELL AS the entertainment industry having the power to take down the sites. You know, for a second I thought it was to stop pirating (which is why the entertainment industry has the power) - but what does the US Government have to do with it?

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Please post evidence of what you mean when you say "the entertainment industry having the power to take down the sites." This is not clear at all. The government has ALL the power. I'm not sure what you think SOPA does. It is quite a confusing bill, but yes, I think people should actually read the whole thing.

What exactly do you think SOPA allows Sony Pictures to do when they find a site streaming their movie? What do you think the steps are to get that offline?

Kickflip said:

Uhm. iTunes is a distribution point, not a music production company. iTunes flourished because the iPod was a hit. If iPods weren't a success, then iTunes would have disappeared. It happened with plenty of other things. People RARELY buy mp3 players anymore. Nobody even SAYS mp3 player, they just say ipod.

It is the music industries job to produce music. It is the motion picture industries job to produce movies. It is OUR job as consumers to REQUEST different distribution points, and for other companies to CREATE and MANAGE further distribution points.

If I told you 10 years ago I could rent a new release movie for $1.00, you would think I am mad. But now we have Redbox. Redbox is able to manage distribution so efficiently that they can pay full price for a DVD and make profit from a $1.00 rental (I know prices have recently risen, I worked for redbox for almost 2 years so its just a point.)

The movie industry didn't make $1.00 rentals possible. They actually tried to stop them. It took innovation from the distribution points to make it possible. Redbox still has to pay $15.00 to $18.00 to purchase the MAJORITY of their DVDs to rent to people.

My point of all of this is, don't try to blame the music industry or movie industry to lack of innovation. That simply isn't their job. The innovations will come from other sources. A lot of original music is posted on sites like YouTube. If we stop listening to the same copyrighted music all of the time, we will hear more interesting made for youtube hits that open our eyes to a whole new experience. Youtube will do more profit sharing with its partners, so more people will want to become partners and produce more original content.

To think SOPA eliminates the need more innovation and growth is quite an uneducated thought about this. It really frustrates me that you would think like that.

Convenience still sells. People would rather go WITHOUT something, then work hard to get it. If the movie companies can access more people through innovation, they will do it. They still have to compete amongst each other, which is why we will always have growth and innovation.

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It is the entertainment industries who must innovate. We are the people and we will buy if the convenience and price is right.

What you are saying is that the movie industry should make a movie - but I should be the one to make it convenient to pay for it, download it an watch it? Please tell me how that makes sense. It doesn't.

It is their job to innovate if they want to keep up and make their products convenient for the public to use. You have yourself stated that you downloa d movies because torrents are so convenient.

If they are not the ones to innovate, and if they leave it to the people - the people are not going to innovate in "their favour" (movie industry) and then this whole problem starts again with SOPA & also the movie rental industry as you stated above.

Kickflip said:

Please post evidence of what you mean when you say "the entertainment industry having the power to take down the sites." This is not clear at all. The government has ALL the power. I'm not sure what you think SOPA does. It is quite a confusing bill, but yes, I think people should actually read the whole thing.

What exactly do you think SOPA allows Sony Pictures to do when they find a site streaming their movie? What do you think the steps are to get that offline?

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One word: lawsuits. Are you being flippant? I'm not even sure.

Government does NOT have all the power, unless you live in Stalinist Soviet Russia (where that still was not 100% the case).

See, the thing with passing most laws that you have to realize is the unintended consequences. And that's when we're talking some minor laws. This is a MAJOR law. The things that are speculated in this thread and other places is just the beginning of the ramifications of SOPA, most of the unintended consequences have most likely not even been thought about.

It all starts with nice well intentioned ideas. Guess what? When Vladimir Lenin first thought up communism he did not have an idea to subjugate and send to Gulag millions of people. He wanted what was good for the Russian people, but it turned into a clusterfuck pretty damn quick.

Back to the point, once laws are passed, it is out of hands of the government. Laws must be upheld (there are many laws Obama's Justice Department must uphold, that it does not agree with). In a country ruled by law, companies like Sony will be able to successfully sue companies like Twitter for infringing on their copyrights, because Twitter did not enforce a strict 100% moderation rules (and if they did it would destroy their business model and take them out of business), IF SOPA passes.

Guess what, copyrights cannot be ever 100% enforced. Before there were torrents there was Napster, before Napster people would re-record things on cassette tapes and give to each other. Unless you live in an authoritarian regime you cannot prevent such things 100%, the same way you cannot achieve 100% security unless you live in a military dictatorship. There's always a tradeoff. It's just a question of how much freedom you are willing to sacrifice, and unfortunately judging by your posts it looks like you are willing to sacrifice much more of it than I am.

How the hell did this thread go from SOPA to child labor? One issue at a time folks.

bertbaby said:

How the hell did this thread go from SOPA to child labor? One issue at a time folks.

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It's back to SOPA already, read the end of it

demongerbil said:

I must say, that is some warped logic you are using.

The music industries job is not to produce music, it is to distribute and license and extract $ from it. It is the artists job to produce music (yes, I do realize we may be arguing semantics, and you could make a distinction between creation and "producing", but I take what you said at the literal sense, which I think is the way you meant it).

The point is music companies were a necessary evil for decades, when it was necessary to put up millions to record music, package it, ship it to stores, pay for marketing, radio stations etc etc etc.

Along the same lines, you have not addressed my point with Louis CK at all.

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I'm not going to reply to everything. I will just make it simple:

Who the hell is Louis CK? Never heard of him.

Have you ever been to a live concert and been disappointed by the bands singing? That is because the Producers do amazing work. A person singing isn't valuable. You need a beat and lyrics to make it a song. You need a lot of work to make it valuable. Who pays for all of this? Mostly the Record Companies pay for this. The record companies pay for everything that goes into it, which means they are responsible for producing the music.

Even today when the "actual" recording may be cheaper, there is still a ton of money needed to successfully produce a quality record.

If the record companies didn't exist, the music wouldn't exist, because nobody would be able to afford to get it made. Yes, there would be music, but not THIS music we have today. After that, then the record companies can offer the music for distribution. The record company OWNS that music. That is THEIR music. But they don't physically shop it around directly to the consumer.

Need proof? I can do that!

Visit http://www.sonymusic.com/

Tell me where they are selling the music. They don't sell the music on the website. You have to visit external links to actually purchase it.

Distribution is what actually gets it from the studio into your hands. Sony Music is not responsible for that. If someone wants to sell a CD, Sony Music can let that happen for them. If someone wants to sell a Record, Sony Music can let that happen. If someone invents a new way to stream music through thought, Sony Music can let them do that.

They are responsible for production.
They are responsible for marketing.
They are responsible for shipping to distributors.

Distribution points are COMPLETELY out of their hands. That has NOTHING to do with them.

Blame Panasonic! Blame Sony Electronics! Blame Apple and Microsoft!

But to lay the blame on Sony Music or Universal etc is just madness.

Kickflip said:

Please post evidence of what you mean when you say "the entertainment industry having the power to take down the sites." This is not clear at all. The government has ALL the power. I'm not sure what you think SOPA does. It is quite a confusing bill, but yes, I think people should actually read the whole thing.

What exactly do you think SOPA allows Sony Pictures to do when they find a site streaming their movie? What do you think the steps are to get that offline?

Click to expand...

While I am not well versed in this bill law (and I admit I do not know the legal process in getting a site removed/taken down) - from my readings it allows the film industry to tell the registrars to remove the website. So in such a case, why would the US Government need any power when the film industry can legitimately remove websites themselves by communicating with the registrar directly?

I've read that in this link: http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/20...the-music-over-internet-piracy-view?category= but if you believe what I have outlined above is wrong, then you may be right - if you have any interesting links to share I would be happy to read.

As far as I am concerned, the US Government should not be an enforcer as in my opinion it gets ugly whenever the US gets too involved in anything. If the law passes, the film industry itself will have the power to ask registrars to remove the website in question.

If the law passes, then I would expect it to be as above. I would not expect the US Government to also, somehow in some unrelated way gain power to also remove websites.

I could be entirely wrong, though - as I don't have the time to dig through countless pages to find a specific references. I understand you ask for evidence, so when I get a few free moments (perhaps later today or tomorrow) I will do my best to dig up a legitimate source to outline the above (assuming I have it down pat).

Overall, the main problem is innovation (lack of it).

Film industry contracts actors and films a movie. Actors get paid and film industry sells product to make profit.

It is up to the movie/film industry to sell the product. It is not up to me, or you or anyone else. It is THEIR responsibility because it is their business.

The people of the world (at least where internet is readily available) want to view the movies and entertainment at HOME.

The film industry, in their job to SELL their product, are NOT listening. They are forcing us to go to the cinema to view said product. This is not what I want, or what you want or what a lot of OTHER people want.

We don't want it. But they're not giving us a 'legal alternative'. Thus, we pirate - and because they are not giving us the convenience that we demand, instead of waking up to their lack of innovative ideas - they are trying to hold the entire internet accountable through SOPA.

Plain silliness.

You guys are freakin hilarious and frustrating at the same time.

Who perfected the Tape Players and CD Players and MP3 players? Was it the Record Companies who OWN the music, or was it the Electronics Companies? Who came up with the idea for them? Was it the Record Companies, or was it someone else?

Sony ELECTRONICS is a big player in Designing and perfecting these applications, not Sony Music. They have NOTHING to do with making distribution easier. That simply isn't their industry. I don't understand how you guys don't get that.

Kickflip said:

I'm not going to reply to everything. I will just make it simple:

Who the hell is Louis CK? Never heard of him.

Have you ever been to a live concert and been disappointed by the bands singing? That is because the Producers do amazing work. A person singing isn't valuable. You need a beat and lyrics to make it a song. You need a lot of work to make it valuable. Who pays for all of this? Mostly the Record Companies pay for this. The record companies pay for everything that goes into it, which means they are responsible for producing the music.

Even today when the "actual" recording may be cheaper, there is still a ton of money needed to successfully produce a quality record.

If the record companies didn't exist, the music wouldn't exist, because nobody would be able to afford to get it made. Yes, there would be music, but not THIS music we have today. After that, then the record companies can offer the music for distribution. The record company OWNS that music. That is THEIR music. But they don't physically shop it around directly to the consumer.

Need proof? I can do that!

Visit http://www.sonymusic.com/

Tell me where they are selling the music. They don't sell the music on the website. You have to visit external links to actually purchase it.

Distribution is what actually gets it from the studio into your hands. Sony Music is not responsible for that. If someone wants to sell a CD, Sony Music can let that happen for them. If someone wants to sell a Record, Sony Music can let that happen. If someone invents a new way to stream music through thought, Sony Music can let them do that.

They are responsible for production.
They are responsible for marketing.
They are responsible for shipping to distributors.

Distribution points are COMPLETELY out of their hands. That has NOTHING to do with them.

Blame Panasonic! Blame Sony Electronics! Blame Apple and Microsoft!

But to lay the blame on Sony Music or Universal etc is just madness.

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Wow, just wow, dude.

Where to start.

"A person singing isn't valuable" - tell that to Ella Fitzgerald, tell it to Ray Charles, tell it to Stevie Wonder, are you fucking kidding me?

So you your argument is SOPA should be passed so that overpriced and overvalued middlemen can package MEDIOCRE talent and peddle it to the mass public? Wait, is that really what you're going with?

This is the most warped adaptation of supply side economics I have ever heard of. "They make crap into seemingly valuable crap, and sell it to people who are none the wiser, therefore we must protect their rights to do so". WTF?

"They are responsible for production.
They are responsible for marketing.
They are responsible for shipping to distributors."

That's the whole point, none of these things are necessary anymore. Great companies(/musicians/anyone who creates anything) don't need to spend $ on marketing. Have you ever seen an ad for Zappos? Their business plan is to spend all their marketing $ on customer service, and that is why they are #1 in their niche.

To quote Fred Wilson "marketing is what you do when your product or service sucks" (source: http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/02/marketing.html )

demongerbil said:

Wow, just wow, dude.

Where to start.

"A person singing isn't valuable" - tell that to Ella Fitzgerald, tell it to Ray Charles, tell it to Stevie Wonder, are you fucking kidding me?

That's the whole point, none of these things are necessary anymore. Great companies(/musicians/anyone who creates anything) don't need to spend $ on marketing. Have you ever seen an ad for Zappos? Their business plan is to spend all their marketing $ on customer service, and that is why they are #1 in their niche.

Click to expand...

Lol. Your whole argument here was based on the fact that you don't enjoy music like Justin Bieber or The Backstreet Boys, wasn't it? Despite what you think, most "artists" do require a lot of work to sellout stadiums around the world. Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga couldn't have done it on their own. You can only go so far without a million dollar marketing budget.

Never heard of Zappos. I think its a Pokemon character though. Maybe they should have put more money into Marketing.

Basically every Top 10 artist in the Music business is signed with a Major label who pays for the production and marketing of their music. I think that speaks for itself.