Re: [dvd-discuss] Record Sales are Down - Piracy To Blame

["Michael A Rolenz" <Michael.A.Rolenz(at)aero.org>]

Universal will blame Piracy for the failure of copy protection that was to 
prevent piracy...where's Monty Python when you need them...Sadly, your 
observation regarding copyright ip people seems true....yet these are the 
people that lobby congress who doesn't seem to have the brains to know 
better (e.g., look at Enron. Of the 280 something people involved in 
looking at it over 200 took campaign contributions)






"John Zulauf" <johnzu@ia.nsc.com>
Sent by: owner-dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu
01/25/02 08:54 AM
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        Subject:        Re: [dvd-discuss]  Record Sales are Down - Piracy To Blame


From my conversations with the Copyright IP people -- they are only
talking to themselves.  The groupthink this facilitates is amazing. 
Further, any non-piracy solution is view as *both* heresy and career
suicide.  The Hollywood tradition of the the yes-man infecting the IP
department.  Ironically, when they look at *other* IP segments (my
example is a movie guy regarding the audio industry) they see that their
opposites clearly "are out to lunch."  Even with close media types
(movies vs. TV) they see issues "what if my daughter is on the local
news and they set no-copy or fixed number of copies, how to I send this
to my family around the country".  When it comes to their own industry
they are a rational as a mother-bear and have all the foresight of an
astigmatic mole.

Universal will blame the failure of copy protected CD's on pirates --
ignoring the fact that (a) the product has a far lower value
proposition, (b) a high "user annoyance factor" and (c) creates a market
for internet MP3 -- as legitimate, former customers can no longer make
MP3's of the disks they formerly purchased.  And once finding a channel
for "free music" (and being generally pissed at Universal) their
motivation to buy the disk in the limit as delta x->0.

Michael A Rolenz wrote:
> 
> On the news this morning there was a brief segment on the woes of the
> Recording industry.
> 
> In 2000, they sold 783 Million Recordings
> In 2001, the number PLUMMETED to 768 Million
> 
> Why?
> 
> Miriah Carey is blamed for part of that. Her last album was not a 9M+
> seller but a flop. But the big blame was PIRACY which the number of
> pirated CDs equals the actual number sold.Yeah...I know...a 2% drop in
> sales during a recession equates to 100% piracy. I don't know what 
cracker
> jack box they got all this out of but I'd bet that's where whomever came
> up with it got his diploma.