“Illegal downloads, decline in concert ticket sales, illicit file sharers and iPods – the music industry would have you believe it was under fire from virtually every side… The iPod is just the latest manifestation of an explosion in the potential for illicit reproduction. When iPods were launched three years ago, the sceptics said the phrase stood for ‘idiots price our devices’ because of the apparently astronomical $400 charged. Yet this did not stop them being sold in their millions,” Matthew Bick writes for The Observer.
“But just how much illegally downloaded music is on one of these things? With 60 million songs available via Apple’s iTunes online store, there are on average only 21 songs that have been legally downloaded from iTunes per iPod. That still leaves more than 4,000 illegal downloads ripped from CDs or downloaded from other illegal sites such as Kazaa,” Bick writes.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Ripping songs from CDs that you’ve purchased into iTunes and transferring those tracks to iPods is not illegal. We have some iPods with over 400 CDs worth of tracks on them and we paid retail for each and every one of those CDs. iPods don’t steal music. People steal music.
Apple’s iTunes Music Store offers “over 1.5 million songs,” according to Apple, not “60 million.”
“iPod” is, of course, an acronym for “Impressive Piece of Design.”
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Ballmer says ‘iPod users are thieves’ statement ‘was bad’ – October 05, 2004
Microsoft CEO Ballmer: ‘Apple iPod users are music thieves’ – October 04, 2004
Amen, brother. Guns don’t kill people, I kill people.
But iPods do NOT help people steal music.
Sure, it’s a big HD to carry files of any kind, legal or not. But big HDs are old, old news.
Blaming the iPod isn’t like opposing guns. It’s like opposing closets because closets can store guns that help kill people! But forgetting that dressers, trunks, and shelves can store guns too–and all of them are mainly used for storing books and clothes anyway. A closet doesn’t make it any easier to kill someone with a gun. An iPod doesn’t make it any easier to download/upload pirated music.
I can sum up this article in one word …. Slander!
You mean libel. Slander is spoken, libel printed.
Actually quite a good article. I would have to agree that the music industry should stop blaming illegal file sharers for “killing” CD sales. They might want to look at the specific numbers such as which are or were the most downloaded tracks specifically from the albums in question. I personally dont mind paying 24.95 to 29.95 NZ for a CD any more than that I would consider a rip off, although I would prefer to pay an average price of $19.95 to 24.95 for a NEW CD and no more than that. The music industry could also look at changeing their business model to take into account the changing times. For instance don’t pay the artists a lump sum up front, instead pay them for the CD sales as they come in. Put more music online sooner and remove the crappy international licencing and distribution restrictions. Make more alternative/”yet to be discovered groups” music available online through mainstream online music channels. I am sure that there is a lot available now that can be discovered via word of mouth. Spend less time promoting crappy artists and artists that are only there becasue of the hype generated by the PR guys and more time promoting artists who are creative in their own right like Donavan Frankenrieder, Dave Matthew’s Band etc rather than promoting Briteny Spears because she is sexy and 13 year old girls like her or used to like her.
Just my 2 cents
I think iPods get the blame for stealing music becasue the are so closely linked with downloading, carrying and and listening to music. People just tend to put them in the same basket which is not always a good thing.
Huge hard drive are very old news. I hope they know people do store other things that just music on those hard drives! Photos, movies, whatever. Even if you have a 60GB iPod, you still need to have enough hard drive space on you computer to store it all. Another thing is that if you start to encode your music in Apple Lossless or higher bitrates than 128 AAC, your music collection starts to take up significantly more space than Apple’s quote of 15000 songs on a 60GB iPod. My 7000 song collection takes over 75GB as it is and not even all of it is Apple Lossless.
The other singer song writter I was going to mention is Jack Johnson as I have his CD “In between dreams”.
Since Apple pretty much made online music purchasing happen, I would say that the iPod+iTunes is the best weapon against illegal music downloading there is.
winmacguy brings up a good point. CDs here are decent priced at less than $15 -$20. Look at the Japanese market when CDs, DVDs, and video games are really expensive. Check amazon for a Japanese import of a band like Daft Punk and it’s more than $40USD. Then you have to remember that they always pay that much for a CD in Japan. Ya, you can complain music is expensive, but most people are willing to shell out the money if they really like the band, I know I am. There are so many articles that say this is just a slump, and you can’t go pointing the finger at piracy or iPods.
Frankly the music industry wants to dictate how we get our music, what they refuse to see is the paradigm shift in the way that end users have chosen to do so. They are fighting a losing battle. The iPod is the target because it symbolizes and is in part cause of this new paradigm.
My call? Apple has sure enough channeled a massive worldwide illegal booty into it’s digital storage product. Master stroke of genius, if you ask me. And in so doing Apple has also created the successful and only viable marketplace for the legal alternative. Apple is kicking music file thieves in the teeth with their own contraband. Wait and watch. A simple flip of the switch and …. bye, bye stash? heh.
We’ll see …
Uh, I think the bigger point here is that The Observer is an avid Apple hater. They’re not to be taken seriously AT ALL!
Ooops. Nevermind. Not the news source I originally thought it was.
A M$ Windhose user can only think of malware and illnesses, they do not want to know how free and delicious you can work and play with products from Apple Macintosh.. !
If the music companies such as EMI and Sony and the rest REALLY were worried about illegal prirating of online music and such they WOULD drop the prices of CDs.
As it stands I think they would rather just charge as much as they can get away with and blame file sharing as an excuse for the drop in revenues. They are not taking into consideration that fact that people are quite happy to pay a reasonable price for good artists like Coldplay (740,000 CDs in the first week and 64,000 tracks downloaded) and good music as opposed to pumping and promoting mediocre artists such as Britney Spears who have a very small age range following and a very limited shelf life.
There was an interesting news item on TV the other week talking about the same fate happening to Movies and asking why people don’t want to pay $14.95 NZ to see an average quality movie when they can rent it for $9.95 on DVD-also taking into account how much it costs to take a family of 5 to the movies $$$. If you make a great movie and do a similtaneous world wide release for an affordable ticket price then less people would be inclined to pirate it on bit torrent and everyone around the world could see it at the same time. Afterall its not like the major movie houses are that short of cash or anything!
Did anyone else catch what was written in this article?
“But just how much illegally downloaded music is on one of these things? With 60 million songs available via Apple’s iTunes online store, there are on average only 21 songs that have been legally downloaded from iTunes per iPod. That still leaves more than 4,000 illegal downloads ripped from CDs or downloaded from other illegal sites such as Kazaa.”
First, iTMS has about 1.5-million songs available, not 60-million as the articles states. BIG difference. That means the math is wrong, too.
Over 500,000,000 songs have been downloaded. At about $1.00 for each, that’s $500-million dollars in sales. OK, There have been about 20-million iPods sold (rough estimate), so around 25 songs from iTMS per iPod.
I know MANY iPod users who do NOT use iTMS, so the average number of iTMS songs per iTMS customer (not per iPod) is a much more important figure. A figure you won’t be getting from Apple any time soon.
It gets worse.
“The iPod is just the latest manifestation of an explosion in the potential for illicit reproduction. When iPods were launched three years ago, the sceptics said the phrase stood for ‘idiots price our devices’ because of the apparently astronomical $400 charged.”
Never heard or read that phrase anywhere. The writer made it up. Obviously, the ‘idiots’ in question were the pundits who thought the price too high. The public doesn’t seem to mind.
iPods don’t steal. People steal.
Oh, articles like that leave their authors with no credibility. Just like the record companies.
Tera Patricks
Mac360
Yes I did catch the bit about the 60 million tracks, I just thought it meant that there were 1.5 million albums on iTunes but hey I was always pretty bad at maths anyhow
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Your right though Tera, there are a lot of mis truths in the article and I still have NO SYMPATHY for those greedy record companies. Although I do have a lot of sympathy for the increasing amount of talented New Zealand artists that are putting out great music that I happily pay full sticker price for.
And what of the other hard disk-based MP3 players? Are those somehow exempt from this presumption that iPods are killing the music industry? Its really sad to hear the iPod being attacked for being successful.
>The iPod is just the latest manifestation of an explosion in the potential for illicit reproduction.
it is not the latest manifestation: there are many alternatives which have appeared since the ipod launched… matthew bick is a knob
> When iPods were launched three years ago, the sceptics said the phrase stood for ‘idiots price our devices’
this appears to come from a wired news article in 2001 referencing a post on macslash…
http://www.wired.com/news/gizmos/0,1452,47805,00.html?tw=wn_story_related
this is journalism 2005-style. matthew bick is a knob
“With 60 million songs available via Apple’s iTunes online store”
With that small statement, this guy loses whatever small amount of credibility he started with.
Talking to a friend who used to get his music from limewire or similar who now buys it all from iTunes he said something that makes sense.
Music companies count every illegal download as a lost sale, however 99% of people who download illegal music would never buy it in the first place so its not a lost sale.
Lots of people would go for live or special recordings which the music companies never release.
But the music companies wont ever take this into account as it reduces their arguement by a huge margin and then they would lose the support of congress for their draconian measures.
iTMS has hit the nail on the head, make it cheap and easy and people will pay for their music.
Hopefully the same will be true of downloaded video
PHB
Isn’t Sony themselves trying like crazy to sell their own mp3 players? Any mp3-enabled CD player can replay illegally downloaded mp3 files.
The iPod is the only player that is part of a package that includes legal online purchase of music (well, if you discount the 200 or so Sony WM-WHATISITCALLED sold so far).
That writer is just a tool for some music industrie exec who took him to dinner.
MW “old”, as in same old excuses
He’l hoping desperately that somehow his comments will negatively effect the sale of iPods …. typical Apple hater.
Idiots price our devices … that’s the clue … the old pc argument … everything from Apple is too expensive …
The inference also being if idiots price them only idiots buy them.
You Mr. Pc guy have done more damage to this world by supporting the most monopolistic, abusive, business destroying, company ever created … MicroSlop!
Who is this guy? He is so short sighted that he can’t even imagine that people buy ipod just to have the hundred of CD already legally purchased always available. On your own stereo ain’t an ipod the ultimate jukebox? What about your car stereo? The music industry had already succeeded to to have me purchase my favorite songs five times via vinyl, CD, compilation, reedition and remasters. Stop the rip off. Is really everybody steeling. I think the music industry has something to think about.
Before there was an iPod, I owned over 1000 CDs – and I paid for all of them – I went through them and ripped the songs I wanted to play on each generation of iPod that I have purchased – now have owned every generation “white”, mini and shuffle… and I have never illegally downloaded any music – So logically, I am a threat to the music industry because I have almost 12,000 songs I can play on my iPods… hmmmm – I get it.
And I have also purchased almost 1000 songs from ITMS – so the music industry is loosing from me – Right….
Not… I read articles like this and I wonder what the writer has been smoking and if Bick is trying to salve his own conscious for all the tunes he has not paid for but has playing on his MP3 player —
obviously he wouldn’t own an iPod after writing this krap…
The latest in a long line of tall-poppy-bashing anti-iPod articles. Meanwhile, the real world continues to vote with its wallets.
Recent research has shown a move away from illegal downloads and towards legitimate online music stores. Like His Steveness said, consumers want the convenience of acquiring music online, and given the choice they’ll pay for it. They just didn’t have the choice until the iTMS et al.
MW: figures, which speak for themselves
Actually, you’re all wrong!
Here in the UK, our interpretation of the European Copyright directives has led to the situation where, under the latest version of the Copyright Act, [B]ANY[/B] ripping is [B]ILLEGAL[/B].
As a result, I know for a fact that the BPI (the British equivalent of the RIAA) and some of its fellow travellers, like PPL (Phonographic Perfomance Ltd.) are chasing some people stating that they are acting illegally and demanding license payments.
The fact that you could probably walk through the offices of the BPI, PPL, PRS, etc. and every other employee probably has an iPod loaded with “illegally” ripped music appears to be lost on these people.
My 80 year old Mother wants an iPod because it is too much trouble for her to look through 300 CDs when she wants to hear a song. How is copying music from CDs you OWN to your own personal iPod illegal? By that same logic, every time you watch a show from your TiVo box, you are breaking the law.
MW – “control” – give the control to the customer.
And before anyone posts some rubbish about Fair Use, there is no such concept in the UK version of the act.
Go get a copy if you don’t believe me…
One other point the author misses is that iTMS exposes people to music they might not otherwise consider buying. I’ve bought over 900 songs on iTMS, many from the Essentials compilations and the iMixes that users post — stuff I probably wouldn’t have known about or sought out in a music store, especially where I’d have to buy the entire CD. Thanks to iTMS’s a la carte pricing, huge catalog, and great browsing options, I’ve bought more music in the last two years, not less.
This is an Observer writer. Let his editors know what you think:
letters@observer.co.uk
B’last:
Why? Because he got the 60 million number wrong?
Like I said, his basic point is – whether by accident or design – correct in the UK (where his paper is circulated).
A detailed reading of the current version of the UK’s Copyright Act will tell you that there are something like 5 million people breaking the law as it currently stands. And that’s just iPod users – add in another million or two who use iTunes, but not an iPod (they do exist), or those who use iRivers (popular with students, because of the voice recorder), Rios, or those who have high-end multi-room hard drive music systems or hard-drive systems in their car and you’re probably talking about 6-7.5 million people who are in breach of the law and at risk of a knock on the door by the police or a letter from the music industry.
This is the kind of thing that happens when senior people in the music industry (remember who owns Universal Music) have partners who are European MPs.
What MCCFR states is correct. ‘Fair Use’ is a US thing. It’s not a global right. There’s no such thing as ‘Fair Use’ in the UK. Ripping, even of CDs that are legally bought, is illegal. It is deemed that a ‘mechanical copy’ has been made. BY using iTunes and an iPod, TWO mechanical are made, so a prosecution on two counts is possible.
It’s highly unlikely, and it would probably involve appeals at all sort of levels of courts that would force the introduction of some kind of fair use policy, so the record companies let it go.
Two headlines. Take your pick.
The Observer: Apple iPod ‘latest manifestation of explosion in potential for illicit reproduction’
Report shows legal music downloads more than tripled in first half 2005
There is no way I could afford to fill my iPod with legal downloads, of course p2p is the main source for iPod music. iTMS is a rip-off, just like Cds.
Except for the inaccuracies attributed to iPod use, I thought the article was pretty good. The author clearly identified one of the industry’s biggest problems: they pay artists far too much, and too early.
That rate of pay has several negative effects. Among them are: it limits the number of artists a label can sign, restricts their ability/desire to take risks with talented unknowns, forces “marketable” vs talented artists on the market, and causes prices for that product to remain at unattractive levels.
During the ’50s and ’60s, there seemed to be an inexhaustable supply of “one hit wonders”. The labels aren’t interested in the unknowns of today. Because of their investment in the Brittany Spears, etc, they want THEM to produce hits. This has led to an inevitable dumbing down of music and artists. The market is just reacting to the management ineptitude of the industry.
Obviously the law varies by country, In Canada it is legal to download from the P2P sites, because the music industry fought for and got a levy on blank media, and the Supreme court said, “you can’t have it both ways”. It is also legal to rip copies of CD’s (or vinyl, etc.) for personal use on alternate technologies as archives.
MW= court
As in Supreme Court. Yeah Canada!
“They pay artists far too much, and too early.”
Mr Gregg Thurmann that is total crap! There are far more stories out there about management ripping off and NOT giving artists a fair share of the profits of their own labour! The worst ones are vultures that feed off the creative output of artists, and often try to determine the direction the artist will take. Nothing kills creativity like some idiot, who doesn’t have a creative bone in his body, trying to push an artist in a certain direction.
Payments to artists are not what “causes prices for that product to remain at unattractive levels” not when they receive one dollar or less for a CD that sells for $14 to $25 dollars!
Hywel:
I wish it was even that good…
You can actually get prosecuted by any or all of the following, either jointly or individually…
BPI – the record industry
PPL – allegedly representing the record industry for right collection purposes
MCPS – representing the songwriters
PRS – representing the artists
And the other one that I forget the name of which represents session musicians
For each offence – which basically means each mechanical copy
So if you have an iPod 15GB, you could get done for around 2000 offences twice – once for iTunes, once for the iPod – by each of these guys.
So 4000 offences multiplied by five, which is 20000 counts.
And all because you’d like your music to be conveniently available wherever you are.
People can’t directly copy CDs onto iPods.
The iPod can only play music that has already been transferred to a computer.
It’s not an iPod, but a computer that’s used both for legal or illicit copying.
Most computers used for copying are PCs, so why doesn’t he direct his fire at his beloved PC ?
— NEWSBREAK —-
RIAA TO SUE INDIVIDUALS FOR UNAUTHORIZED MEMORIZATION OF SONGS
In a surprise move, the RIAA announced today that it intends to prosecute individuals for using yet another illegal music “duplication” method.
Under a new lawsuit, anyone who can hum, sing, play or otherwise recant any song, in part or whole, that the individual did not personally pay for, can be prosecuted. This would include any song heard on the radio, television, or any other method where the music heard was not directly purchased by the listener.
The RIAA argues that memorizing a song is an unauthorized duplication method and is only permittable if the song was heard from a purchased CD or from a legal download site.
More at 8.
As others have said, ripping from CD’s you have purchased is illegal in many countries. The 60 million available is the number of tunes purchased in the UK from iTMS, I would imagine, and the 21 tunes per iPod is the 60 million divided by the number of iPods sold in the UK. So, in the eyes of the BPI, on average, all but 21 tunes on any UK iPod are illegal. The author is right in the as far as the British justice system is concerned and everything he has said is true.
So, the moral of the story is that politicians, the world over, can be bought by big business in order to protect big business’s interests.
MCCFR – Indeed. In practice they don’t sue for what would be considered ‘fair use’ in the US. But they could. And that’s something they want to keep a hold of. For now.
What I don’t get with the records companies is that they have to blame someone else. That they act like victims. So people are willing to spend less on music. Well, that’s down to not producing as good a product, it’s due to poor marketing and it’s down to people having better things to spend their money on. Where so they think the money to pay for a mobile phone & contract comes from ? Something most people didn’t have 10 years ago. It comes from their disposable income. So people with more stuff to buy spread it around more thinly. People can’t have the mobile phone, and the games console and games and hideously expensive hot dogs and ludicrously big drinks at the cinema unless they get it from somewhere else.
What’s caused the decline in record company profits is simply consumer choice. It doesn’t automatically mean that people are stealing the music. Take away the P2P sites and it’s likely that sales would not be dramatically altered. It just means that people don’t think it’s worth the money. Deal with it and quit whining !
Hywel:
Well said.
Henry,
>There is no way I could afford to fill my iPod with legal downloads, of course p2p is the main source for iPod music. iTMS is a rip-off, just like Cds.>
There’s no way I could afford to buy a Mercedes, I guess I should just steal one.
MW- case. As in- Henry, I wonder what your case no. will be?
Haven’t bought a record since they broke the $4.00 mark in 1973.
Meaning, I didn’t buy anything until file sharing became available a few years ago.
Now, my collection is 5000+ strong, including hundreds of tracks I have ripped off that old sub $4.00 vinyl and shared.
You have to remember that the majority of musicians have little talent, and enjoy success because of successful promotion and a market that accepts almost anything.
When I steal songs it brings some “musicians” closer to getting real jobs…..what a win/win that is!
Al Capone also bragged.
This is the kind of thing that happens when senior people in the music industry (remember who owns Universal Music) have partners who are European MPs.
You mean England is more corrupt than the States, or it’s just better hidden in the US?
You have to remember that the majority of musicians have little talent, and enjoy success because of successful promotion and a market that accepts almost anything.
When I steal songs it brings some “musicians” closer to getting real jobs…..what a win/win that is!
Joe, what knnd of a weird music hater are you? You’ve got some serious issues there.
@ neomonkey:
When I said European, that’s what I meant.
Universal Music is owned by a French company, Vivendi – and, as far as I understand it, the female partner of a senior Vivendi official (you must remember the breadth of their interests) just happened to be the channel used to draft a pretty tight directive.
Of course, we Brits – in our ardour to show what good team players we are – then drafted pretty much the most draconian of all of the local implementations of that directive, doubtless “helped” by people like British Music Rights (http://www.bmr.org).
So now we have a situation where the judge in the Apple Corps. vs Apple Computer case is probably a criminal, given that he confessed to both sides’ counsel that he was an iPod user. Not to mention the various MPs and peers that approved the legislation. Or indeed, British-based contributors to Apple’s celebrity playlists like Jamiroquai, Phil Collins (perhaps no bad thing), Goldfrapp and Joss Stone to name but a few.
they are called oldies but goodies for a reason, neo.
Though I would have to agree with Joe McConnell that the majority of musicians are talentless boobs, and that the public accepts almost any noise as music, that’s NEVER an excuse for stealing music.
Joe, if you’re going to be the brazen stealer songs who brings some “musicians” closer to getting real jobs, be a real man about it and just take the CDs right out of the record store, would ya? If you’re going to lead the charge, show some balls, man.
PS: If it’s not worth paying for, is it really worth listening to? Your logic doesn’t pan out.
“That still leaves more than 4,000 illegal downloads ripped from CDs”
you can’t rip CDs you’ve bought? news to me.. dumb shits.
MW “now” as in, “now, really?”
Perhaps what’s needed is for US Tourists to refuse to come to London, not because of the danger of being blown up by a suicide bomber, or shot in the head by a misguided policeman, but rather because they don’t feel comfortable using a device that could land them in big trouble … their iPod.
@ Weighted Memory
What bit of myself and Hywel’s previous posts are you having a problem with?
In the UK, it isn’t legal – it’s a UK newspaper, therefore he’s right which kind of makes you look a bit stupid.
Not having itms in Australia makes it kinda hard to download legal songs so my iPod is filled with thousands of legitimately ripped CDs. Actually I believe that very process is illegal in Australia but I own the original discs.
I admit to having obtained perhaps 5 of those thousands of songs from other sources including a couple of tracks I ripped from the radio.
Fact is while disagreeing with the illegal download of illegal music I have tried ‘illicit’ music to see what the fuss is about and it is just too hard. (Not difficult just PITA Hard).
As any salesman will tell you if you take away all reasons for the customer to say no you are 100% home. iTunes make the whole process so easy you can’t say ‘No’.
Joe’s right –
I also stopped buying CD’s long ago, considering them way too expensive, and formed the basis of a now ridiculously large collection of music by ripping old vinyl and raping the first Napster incarnation.
Now, if I hear an interesting song, I get it off of P2P and enjoy it for a while. If I like the band enough to buy the album, I’ll go to ITMS or (more likely) that fabulous Russian site that should not be named…
This is an old thread by now but I’ll add a touch of my own experience anyway.
When I bought my iPod, I had maybe 5 or 6 gigs of illegally downloaded music (copied from friends) plus my own CD collection. After about a month with the iPod, I deleted all the illegal music.
Why? Because it was a pain. Sure, most of it was tagged, but everyone had different ideas of HOW to tag. So the experience was terrible, as things weren’t sorted in any sensible way by album, artist, or genre. It was just a mess, and the quality was inconsistent too. Sure, sometimes the Gracenote listings are off too, but not nearly so much.
These days I buy all music I want on CD.
bad music is killing the record industry. arod may have a hand in it as well