Napster co-founder: war on music piracy is a failure

[jjbeard926]

Guest said:
The war on music pirating is like the war on drugs, you just can't win

Very true. People will make, find, buy or steal it if they want it bad enough. Period. No laws, regulations or fences can stop that. We seek out what we want and we will do it forever.

So (not to date myself here) is this like the movie war games? The only way to win is not to play?

 

[Ay Jay]

Take a look at Pandora, It's not doing bad at all, why? He's got a point, its convenient, its easy, its fast and easily accessible.Sure there's ads but those help generate revenue for themselves, site upkeep, and the artists. People obviously pay the 36 dollars for the yearly subcription to Pandora, people do the same thing for Netflix. Take those same concepts + completely customized playlists (unlike Pandora) and you've got yourself a hit.

 

[arod916]

The only way to stop it would be to embed some sort of non audible signature into the original recordings wavefile. They could then possibly be detected by scanning the files, kind of like an xray over the web. Then any copies would also contain that signature including any rips, recorded streams, or others. Not sure if you could catch files composed of rars though. It just might be impossible to stop, unless artists start creating albums worth purchasing, where over 75% of the music is listenable. Mainstream pay to play radio stations, and tv have mostly killed the days of genuine artists that make music that they themselves actually love.

 

[StrctClubBouncr]

The whole war is stupid.

So if you walk into a store and steal an album and get caught, you get a small punishment including paying the $15 for the album. But if you steal it online and get caught, you get a $1 million dollar lawsuit. Makes perfect sense.

 

[princeton]

lawfer said:
And the moral of this story is:

Sean Parker is a douchebag.

Lol. Your comments made me laugh 5 minutes ago. I like you, keep it up!

 

[posermobile89]

It sounds good, but piracy (not approving it) is more convenient. You get unlimited songs for free, with no DRM. You dont need to worry about apps or using a different program to play your music, its just ultimately free and more convenient.

 

[DarKSeeD]

...and this is the first time I've heard of Spotify. I still like to hear my vinyls, tapes...call me old fashion. More and more "artists" are using computers to create music or at least they think so.

 

[Guest]

I've never heard Sean Parker speak, but I'm astonished at how naive his ideas are.

"You get that song stuck in your head...that's the hook"

You think people are going to subscribe to your service because they've got a song stuck in their head and they want it on their mp3 player? That's ridiculous. One commenter already pointed out that DRM restrictions are *precisely why* people avoid these services.

This also a great example of a terrible placement of profanity in a presentation.

"we've got you by the balls".

Dropping an f-bomb (or a balls-bomb) in a presentation is an art-form. You want to add an edge that excites people by leading them into the risque. NOT alienates them! Sean, you're talking to your CUSTOMERS for f*^k sakes!?!

You do not now, nor will you EVER, have me by the balls.

 

[Lokalaskurar]

Sean Parker said:
"the client holds all its music files locked with the program so you can't move it to your mp3 player"

There are, as with most things, annotations describing the basis of a professional trickster. Also "a code", FYI. However; the following which is written have I amusingly enough copied and translated directly from "The Guide of a Conman" by Jaroslav Kriz (1849) Quoting;

Annotation 2: Everything you can see, touch, hear, smell, or taste, is copiable." (-)

Even if it's jammed tight to your desktop. There is always a way... and there always will be.

 

[Adhmuz]

As long as DRM exist piracy will exist, as long as media worth paying for exist piracy will exist, as long as media exist piracy will exist.... See where Im going with this? Technicaly if I buy a CD, which I payed for legaly, go to a friends house and it gets ripped onto a computer that doesn't belong to me it has been pirated. Now that everyone has an internet connection, its just easier, I no longer have to go to that friends house, I can just send it to him via a number of file transfer services, some of which are virtualy untracable. If they can stop that from happening I would be blown away.

 

[grimm808]

"No choice, we got you by the balls" ? Haha, you don't have me on anything you arrogant $h!t stain. I wouldn't pay for your stupid music service. Go get a room with yourself.

 

[grimm808]

"No choice, we got you by the balls" ? Haha, you don't have me on anything you arrogant $h!t stain. I wouldn't pay for your stupid music service. Go get a room with yourself.

 

[Night Hacker]

It's sort of like going to buy a car, and then finding out you're only allowed to drive the car on certain roads the car dealer deems appropriate.

I like to be honest and fair and pay for what I use. But only if I am buying from an honest and fair company.

 

[IAMTHESTIG]

This is an interesting idea but I don't think it will have that big of an effect... I still see tons of people say if it has DRM, then screw it. I kind of agree with that, as I want to be able to do whatever I want with the music I pay for. The customer not only wants convenience but they want flexibility, and this service sounds like it will limit flexibility unless you spend more money.

Now if this application is completely web based, so you can access your music while at work, and on the go via a plugins or small apps for phones, then I can definitely see some people getting addicted to the convenience of this service. But if it is restricted to one computer will internet access... and then (from what it sounds like) have to pay to download a DRM protected mp3 to save it to an iPod or whatever, then I don't see the appeal.

On a similar note regarding mp3s in general... no matter what, I still feel music is too expensive and DRM is pissing everyone off. I know 99 cents isn't a lot for a song but you put 10 of those and you've nearly have the price of an album on CD. The prices seem to be a bit better then they used to be but still too much I think. 29 cents for a song, 39 for a popular/new one. $2-3 for a full album.

With these prices and DRM-less mp3 downloads, plus with sufficient TV/radio/internet advertising, I bet you could double your legal mp3 sales. I personally buy some of my mp3s off amazon because they are DRM-less, and I love it. Sure I share them with personal friends sometimes, transfer them between my personal devices... but they still got some money. You are never going to completely stop piracy, so prices need to be very competitive while access and use need to be easy. At this rate $1 for a song is too much for me and I only spend it if I really like that artists music... but if they were 29 or 39 cents each, i'd be buying a hell of a lot more music online.

 

[TechDisciple]

I couldn't agree more with the title. Then again i could post my thoughts on the subject but pretty much everything has been said.

 

[VitaminC]

I have nothing against these companies hunting down pirates that mass re-produce their stuff and sell it to make a profit. Go for it.
But attacking people for doing the same thing they used to do with tapes, just because it's much easier to do than when it was done with tapes...is just plain shallow if you make absolutely no effort to embrace the new medium.

 

[jetkami]

I bought cassette tape,records,cd's and dvd's and that is where i stop. I miss the days of standing in a record shop for hours discussing new bands with some cute babe that works at the store.

 

[hassaan]

Has anyone ever used spotify. I've heard that only current users can invite other users.

 

[f111]

Its just another company to try impose DRM, just to find it alienates people. Besides why would you pay when you can listen to music (legally) for free on the internet, at least for the moment.

 

[xanthic42]

"We've got you by the balls"

Staying as far away as possible from anyone with a "service" that has that type of attitude.

 

[St1ckM4n]

gwailo247 said:
...Right now you can go on YouTube and watch the video of just about any song that you want. Over and over again.... /quote]

Youtube still has the problem with quality. There is only a miniscule amount of songs on there that could pass as anywhere near 128kbps on mid-range speakers.

And that's a pretty low bitrate in itself.

 

[grumpiman]

st1ckm4n said:

gwailo247 said:
...Right now you can go on YouTube and watch the video of just about any song that you want. Over and over again.... /quote]

Youtube still has the problem with quality. There is only a miniscule amount of songs on there that could pass as anywhere near 128kbps on mid-range speakers.

And that's a pretty low bitrate in itself.

...yeah but you can pretty much see where it's going. I'm betting YouTube is more likely to still be around in a few years than Spotify.

 

[ucould2]

jetkami said:
I bought cassette tape,records,cd's and dvd's and that is where i stop. I miss the days of standing in a record shop for hours discussing new bands with some cute babe that works at the store.

I agree this is what has happened to me too when I was no longer able to copy a CD onto a mini-disc due to the DRM of the compilation I pretty much stopped buying new Music.
the cute babes though now play the music

 

[Zoner1501]

DRM is the plague of the music industry, I'm surprised it has so many ppl in Europe are subscribed to this service

 

[frodough]

so Spotify = Netflix for music. what a bright new idea! who knows maybe they will sent cd albums out for rent too???