Norway Declares iTunes Illegal

bruckwine

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Little bro Apple has become the Big bro they so despised...seriously I agree... DRM - Devil's Royalty Mechanism..who I'd REALLY like to get the stick is the R*I*A*A
 

Eric5273

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They are in violation of anti-trust laws. We have the same laws on the books here, but they haven't been enforced for a few decades.

Having iTunes only work with iPods is like if your local power supplier's gas only worked with a certain brand furnace that they sold themselves.

Just on the surface, it's an anti-trust violation to be in both the business of selling music and the business of selling music players. The European countries are allowing it anyway, but they are going to regulate it to make sure fair business practices are followed. In the U.S., a few campaign contributions to the right politicians, and a few well placed lobbyists tend to take care of such problems.
 

Eric5273

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who I'd REALLY like to get the stick is the R*I*A*A

I'm in the music business, and I agree with you. They are overcharging the customers, and at the same time not paying the publishers and songwriters a high enough royalty for selling their music.

I own a music publishing company, and for the 99 cents that the iTunes store charges for music that I own the copyright to, I only get 9.1 cents for each sale, which my company then splits with the particular songwriter. And the other 90 cents? Probably split between the record company and the vendor (Apple). Ridiculous if you ask me. The owner of the music should profit more than the middle men.
 

Kupe#WP

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I'm in the music business, and I agree with you. They are overcharging the customers, and at the same time not paying the publishers and songwriters a high enough royalty for selling their music.
Hey man, a lawyer (or 2, or 2,000,000) has to eat too, ya know? :mad:
 

copernicus

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I'm in the music business, and I agree with you. They are overcharging the customers, and at the same time not paying the publishers and songwriters a high enough royalty for selling their music.

I own a music publishing company, and for the 99 cents that the iTunes store charges for music that I own the copyright to, I only get 9.1 cents for each sale, which my company then splits with the particular songwriter. And the other 90 cents? Probably split between the record company and the vendor (Apple). Ridiculous if you ask me. The owner of the music should profit more than the middle men.
Thanks for the details. I know the artists have always gotten the short end of it but it's interesting to know how short.
 

littlewaywelt

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The owner of the music should profit more than the middle men.

Why, aren't they doing all the work in moving the product?
It doesn't seem much different from other industries. How does the literary world work?

Artists are always whining about not getting enough, but in the end all they do is create a single product. Someone else has to market it, package it, have infrastructure set for moving it. If the artists wants a bigger share then all he/she has to do is take over all of the process.

Over charging? I consider it a steal. 99c for a song? It's 1000x more convenient than going to a record store and less expensive before you even consider all of the associated costs (gas, time, etc.).

as to iTunes, if you don't like the system you don't have to use it. There are plenty of alternatives out there. Why is it that 99% of the people seem happy with the apple arrangement? Because it works just fine. I consider my ipod and itunes to be 2 halves of a music system.
 

archie

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I'm in the music business, and I agree with you. They are overcharging the customers, and at the same time not paying the publishers and songwriters a high enough royalty for selling their music.

I own a music publishing company, and for the 99 cents that the iTunes store charges for music that I own the copyright to, I only get 9.1 cents for each sale, which my company then splits with the particular songwriter. And the other 90 cents? Probably split between the record company and the vendor (Apple). Ridiculous if you ask me. The owner of the music should profit more than the middle men.
Apple only sees 4 cents for every song sold. This is used to cover logistics, delivery and server maintenance. Something like a half-cent above breaking even.
 

Eric5273

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Why, aren't they doing all the work in moving the product?
It doesn't seem much different from other industries. How does the literary world work?

Artists are always whining about not getting enough, but in the end all they do is create a single product. Someone else has to market it, package it, have infrastructure set for moving it. If the artists wants a bigger share then all he/she has to do is take over all of the process.

I'm not talking about artists. I'm talking about the songwriters. Most of them are poor and do not make a decent living. If you are a singwriter, even if you have a platinum selling single, you will only make about $41,000 total under the current system. And very few singles or albums go platinum.

My company has a couple of hundred songwriters, and I have enough fingers to count how many of them do not have full time day jobs and only do the songwriting on the side because they cannot make a living doing that.

I know when you watch movies like Dreamgirls, it looks like everybody who writes a song make a million bucks, but that is fairy tale land. I know songwriters who have written songs that hit the top 40 on the charts, and/or had their music featured in blockbuster feature films and television shows, and they still struggle to make a living.

And BTW, the record companies do what they want. They do not need permission from the publisher or songwriter to record and sell their songs. The current law says they can do what they want as long as they pay this lousy 9.1 cent royalty for each copy sold. And now with the online system of distribution, they are trying to lobby congress to make that pathetic royalty rate even lower. Publishers have no control over this at all.
 

Pearl_Diva

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Why, aren't they doing all the work in moving the product?
It doesn't seem much different from other industries. How does the literary world work?

Artists are always whining about not getting enough, but in the end all they do is create a single product. Someone else has to market it, package it, have infrastructure set for moving it. If the artists wants a bigger share then all he/she has to do is take over all of the process. I'd like to see artists themselves offer online album downloads and BYPASS the DRM people!! I'm not sure the labels would go for this though.

Over charging? I consider it a steal. 99c for a song? It's 1000x more convenient than going to a record store and less expensive before you even consider all of the associated costs (gas, time, etc.). Would be nice if the artists saw more of the .99 cents. Plus it's not a real bargain when the consumer cannot use the songs on any player or computer they wish. You can still do that with CDs by ripping to NON DRM formats.

as to iTunes, if you don't like the system you don't have to use it. There are plenty of alternatives out there. NO there are not because they are ALL DRM!!!Why is it that 99% of the people seem happy with the apple arrangement? Because it works just fine.More like many people are sheep. I consider my ipod and itunes to be 2 halves of a music system. That's the problem right there! And the same goes for WMA DRM too!


DRM=less freedom. Plain and simple. CDs are still the way to go if you want control over music you paid money for. Obviously, respect copyrights and don't use for commercial broadcasts. But for personal use, I'd like to put my music I bought on any player I choose!
 

meyerweb#CB

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I wouldn't mind a DRM that ensured that I didn't share music I paid for with people who didn't pay for it. I abhor the current state of DRM that says not only can I not share it with other people, but I can only play it on a device sold by the seller of the music.

Nobody would tolerate buying CDs or DVDs that could only be played on the vendors own player. Why do we tolerate it with mp3 and other downloadable formats?

It's a total crock, but think about how much money the RIAA and individual record labels (and Apple and Microsoft) spend lobbying Congress, and how much they donate to campaign committees. Think it's going to change any time soon? If so, you believe in fairy tales.
 

archie

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I wouldn't mind a DRM that ensured that I didn't share music I paid for with people who didn't pay for it. I abhor the current state of DRM that says not only can I not share it with other people, but I can only play it on a device sold by the seller of the music.

Nobody would tolerate buying CDs or DVDs that could only be played on the vendors own player. Why do we tolerate it with mp3 and other downloadable formats?

It's a total crock, but think about how much money the RIAA and individual record labels (and Apple and Microsoft) spend lobbying Congress, and how much they donate to campaign committees. Think it's going to change any time soon? If so, you believe in fairy tales.
Hhmm. We should revisit your thoughts in a a couple of months. And I'll let you direct this "fairy tale" question at me personally.
 

Eric5273

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Here's a good article explaining the current fight going on:

The music kings fight over royalites

There's a widespread public impression of the music industry as monolithic corporate horde moving in lock-step to a) force brainless pap down our ear canals, b) exploit lowly artists and c) sue the pants off of 12-year-olds, college students, grandparents and dead people. In truth, only a portion of the industry is dedicated to those three goals. Umm, that was a joke, and so is the notion of a united industry front. A good illustration of the divisions in the music ranks is the emerging battle between the major record companies and the music publishers -- the largest of which are their corporate siblings -- over how much the publishers must be paid whenever a song is copied.

Because of the dual copyrights involved in musical recordings, the labels have to pay publishing arms such as the Harry Fox Agency (which collects the "mechanical" royalties earned by tens of thousands of songwriters) 9.1 cents for every song recorded by their artists. That's not a one-time payment; it's a payment due on each CD track or authorized download. The rate, which is set by statute and has risen steadily since 1978, is slated to expire at the end of next year.

Today the two sides asked a copyright royalty board (a three-person arbitration panel) to come up with a new rate for 2008 and beyond. Their proposals reflect a fundamental split, and it's not just over the size of the royalty. The labels want publishers to be paid a percentage of the revenue made from the sale of songs, while the publishers want to continue being paid a fixed amount, at least for CDs, permanent downloads and ringtones. Specifically, the labels propose a rate of 8% of wholesale revenue, which translates to roughly 6 cents per download and 8 cents per song on a CD. The publishers want 15 cents per download, 15 cents per ringtone (as a minimum; they'll accept a percentage of ringtone revenues if it yields more money) and 12.5 cents per song on a disc.

I have some sympathy for the publishers' request for more money, given that the compulsory nature of the license undermines their bargaining power. But fixed royalties are an artifact of a business model that's dying. What's worse, they prevent labels and online music outlets from experimenting effectively with new models that have the potential to make everybody better off. The file-sharing phenomenon strongly suggests that the market is crying out for a low-cost, high-volume approach to music, but it's hard to slash wholesale prices when publishers are guaranteed upwards of 9 cents a track. That's why the royalties should shift to a percentage of sales revenue. And the two sides should start hammering out a deal now, rather than waiting for the arbitrators to decide. It's way past time to test the elasticity of demand for music.




"Compulsory" means that I cannot ban a record label from selling my music. They do not need permision, and they can sell it in any form they want. Should I not at least have the right to determine the price they must pay me?
 

littlewaywelt

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DRM=less freedom. Plain and simple. CDs are still the way to go if you want control over music you paid money for. Obviously, respect copyrights and don't use for commercial broadcasts. But for personal use, I'd like to put my music I bought on any player I choose!

DRM is the price of doing business when ppl insist on cheating via "filesharing" etc. That's your choice. Everyone knows that iTunes only works with iPods going in. I have other devices that only work with certain software.


A songwriter only gets a small %? Big deal. He/She is no different than a writer, singer, etc. In the end, it's a free world. If they want a higher % they are free to go into biz for themselves, find artists, publishing mediums, and build all the infrastructure necessary to move the product.

the success of iTunes & iPod has nothing to do with ppl being sheep. That's rediculous. They have succeeded because they put out a product that the market wants and pays for. They have expertly determined the cost the market will bare in their products. iPod is a genius product driven by outstanding marketing. What's wrong with that? Additionally there are plenty of software titles out there that allow you to move music from your ipod to any computer. Even the new iTunes allows sycing with two computers.

...and in the end, as you know, you can pull the drm off the song, by burning and reimporting without violating fairplay. DRM is a necessary evil to rightly prevent the likes of the original Napster. Is it a hassle? Maybe, but you can always purchase a cd if you don't like it. No one is forcing you to use iTunes, subscription based stuff, etc.
 

Kupe#WP

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Last I heard, you can still burn CD's of your iPod downloads and re-rip 'em back onto your computer as DRM-free MP3s. The quality is slightly lower (depending on the bit rate you choose for your MP3 ripping) and it does cost you the price of a CD (what's that now - like $0.10 each?).

Copyright violations are criminal, but DRM presumes guilt before a crime is committed. It's like we're all born with RIAA original sin! :cool:
 

Pearl_Diva

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DRM is the price of doing business when ppl insist on cheating via "filesharing" etc. Oh PLEASE!!! People have been trading and copying music for YEARS!! Ever use a record player with a tape player attached, so you could tape the record? It's old school, but we did that back in the day. Yes, I'm kind of old. :D

A songwriter only gets a small %? Big deal. He/She is no different than a writer, singer, etc. In the end, it's a free world. If they want a higher % they are free to go into biz for themselves, find artists, publishing mediums, and build all the infrastructure necessary to move the product. So much for your support of the artists!

the success of iTunes & iPod has nothing to do with ppl being sheep. That's rediculous. NOT ridiculous. MANY people somehow think the iPod is the be all and end all of MP3 players and do not look at anything else objectively. THAT'S being a sheep to a brand, whether you like the word or not! They have succeeded because they put out a product that the market wants and pays for. They have expertly determined the cost the market will bare in their products. iPod is a genius product driven by outstanding marketing. What's wrong with that? I'm not against the iPod itself. I have 2 BTW and will probably get another OR maybe the new Zune when it comes out because AAC is a very good music format. Additionally there are plenty of software titles out there that allow you to move music from your ipod to any computer.And why doesn't iTunes itself allow this? DRM paranoia? :evil: Even the new iTunes allows sycing with two computers.And WinAmp lets you do WAY more than iTunes.

...and in the end, as you know, you can pull the drm off the song, by burning and reimporting without violating fairplay. DRM is a necessary evil to rightly prevent the likes of the original Napster. And did you know there's a burn limit? If you bought the song, why isn't it really yours STILL? Is it a hassle? Maybe, but you can always purchase a cd if you don't like it. No one is forcing you to use iTunes, subscription based stuff, etc. True, but the restriction even on music that I paid money for make me want to go search for CDs all over again. I can see restrictions on subscription music, but not the stuff I PAID for!

I'll never be a DRM fan. Never. It really does no one any good but the huge record companies, plain and simple! Honestly ask yourself what DRM did for you, but restrict what devices and computers you can play music that YOU paid for on?
 

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