The music industry finds another way to shoot itself in the foot | Hacker News Reader

The music industry finds another way to shoot itself in the foot

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85 pointsAndrewDucker39 comments

Yep, happens far too often, it's even more annoying when a legal mp3 download is geo-restricted for a period of time.

While in LA a couple of weeks ago, I saw a fair bit of marketing for the MLB 2011 video game, published by 2K. (I was out there mainly to see the Dodgers play, so no surprise there.) When back in the UK I was unable to buy a hard copy or a digital download, so I torrented it. Last week I was at a big consumer event called Gadget Show Live (~100,000 visitors over 5 days), and one of the companies we had sold space to was 2K, promoting Duke Nukem. While chatting to one of the higher up guys in 2K I mentioned that I had been forced to pirate it, and he showed no surprise. He did tell me that they were expecting the game to arrive in the UK fairly soon.

While it's not quite the same situation, as an MLB game is obviously going to find 99.99% of its audience outside the UK (in countries where they actually play baseball, such as the US), it still goes to show that, even when being distributed/marketed in different regions by the same company, sometimes the release dates won't match, not because they have a reason for some people having to wait, but simply because it's easier for them to deal with that way.

Same deal with Football Manager in Germany. Not available at all, though they're still able to include the Bundesliga in the game, unlike the J-League. Judging from their podcasts, sports licensing seems like a crazy nightmare.

Lesson learned: try not to create anything involving someone else's IP, unless you enjoy spending lots of time with lawyers.

My band released an album mid-2010 through Disc Makers and part of the package included Disc Makers publishing the album through multiple online music vendors.

We set a specific release date, and all of the online music vendors respected that release date, EXCEPT Amazon. Amazon made the music available for sale exactly 13 days prior to our desired release date.

Since we aren't a super-commercialized band, the early release by Amazon was more of an annoyance to us than a marketing strategy blunder. But, I guess it was annoying enough for me to want to comment about it on the Internets.

Sorry to hear about your bad Amazon experience. I looked around a bit more, though, and the late UK release of Paul Simon's album is not an Amazon thing, it's UK-wide: HMV and Sainsbury both have the same release date in the UK as Amazon does.

Come on people, do some research:

This is because Paul Simon is what is typical of an artist of his age:

He is handled ex-US (International) by Universal Music Domestically, as of last year he is Sony Music

Worldwide until last year, he was represented by Warner Bros Records (WEA Distribution).

What you are seeing is called "greed" on the part of all parties involved (Simon and management included).

Another band that operates this way? Metallica: Warners in US, Universal ex-US. Although the band made sure they were universally released on the last record (Death Magnetic).

ethanks says: What you are seeing is called "greed" on the part of all parties involved.

But how? I simply don't see how NOT MAKING THE PRODUCT AVAILABLE TO BE BOUGHT can possibly help to line anyone's pockets.

I know I must be missing something here. But what?

Likely its some hack eyed windowing strategy that someone thought of. Just like with the last REM record (which was the last I worked on), they did 3 different singles in different territories.

It could be because: - Retail exclusive partnership - Something to do with local radio promotion - Tour scheduling

Any number of things. Somewhere, in someones brain, this idea made sense because it made someone more money in the long run, even if it hurts fans, etc in the short.

Trust me, any time I heard the term "geoblocked" with a video exclusive I wanted to scream. Still do!

Same principle: The original Tron being essentially impossible to find (I think I saw a DVD for like $300 on ebay) on any service... until... The Tron: Legacy blu-rays came out. Then suddenly, the original Tron is easy to find. And the crappy 480p torrent that I may or may not have downloaded now may or may not have been replaced with a (purchased!) 1080p rip.

My guess is that the sellers think that, by waiting in market X, they drum up "anticipation", driving sales when it finally is released. One way to do this is by costly advertising, another way is to release it to a few people and let them advertise for you - similar to releasing previews of movies, etc to reviewers. They're using the US as an ad agency to boost demand elsewhere.

Personally, I think this is complete insanity, and yes, drives piracy. But that's the best I can come up with, and it jives with the media industry's other crazy-ass antics.

This doesn't even touch on the fact that albums now seem to leak months in advance of their release date. I don't doubt that this means that people in the UK can be listening to albums 2-3 months in advance of when they can legally purchase them. I can't help but imagine this is one of the leading causes of music piracy these days.

Why wait 3 months to listen to an album if you can get it today?

It is not hard to keep a record from leaking: just don't allow pre-releases, or watermark them, or MSI them (MSI makes the disk violate redbook so it can't be ripped). The whole reason that NPR and the like get a record one week before street is because once the records are on trucks to retail (1 week out) it leaks without fail.

The REM record I just worked on never leaked. Why? We protected the prerelease distribution and people honored that. We also didn't put out the full record early to anyone, only a sampler.

Leaks are always from carelessness or are deliberate. Either or.

I was impressed with this, which I saw (ironically) about 15 minutes after I posted my earlier comment:

http://ninjatune.net/article/2011/apr/19/amon-tobin-isam-ava...

This is the best response I've seen from a label to a leak yet.

Yeah, we were usually prepared to do this if need be. I can't remember if we ever had to though.

Huh? I don't get it. I mean moving the digital release date is a cool reaction. The description is a bit weird.

> "not everyone realises how much is invested in ambitious, groundbreaking tours"

How many people would see those? Hundreds? Thousands? Probably not one percent compared to sales. Then again fans would still like to buy it. Whoever wanted to hear the tracks at a gig, will wait for the gig before buying the album. I don't see how tour timing is related here. Tour posters will be visible anyways to remind people about the artist - it's not like they got cancelled.

> "collaborations with brilliant artists"

Again - what does it have to do with the release date?

> "lovingly designed packaging"

Not related to digital sales at all.

> "All that happens is a lot of great ideas and music come under threat."

To me it translates to: We were waiting so you can all experience the release in a way we imagined it, but apparently all you wanted was the music, not our tours, designs and marketing campaigns. And because of that the music came under threat. The horror!

You're pulling things out of context. The full quote, which answer most of your questions:

" A nameless person has decided that he, not us, is best placed to release the new Amon Tobin album, and to do so for free, online via a watermarked promotional copy. We know these things happen, and we know that not everyone realises how much is invested in ambitious, groundbreaking tours, collaborations with brilliant artists and lovingly designed packaging... It still hurts."

The point they're making is that it costs them a lot of money to produce an album, and someone deciding to leak it early sucks. An obvious point, but one that's probably written more out of frustration than out of a desire to communicate something people don't already know.

The translation that I took from it, is that they want to offer a full package on a given date. That package includes the option to digitally purchase the music, or buy a physical disc that includes things that they feel are important to some people. By having it leaked a month+ early, most people are just going to acquire it they only way they currently can -- by downloading it for free. Offering a digital download a month early is obviously not the ideal scenario for them (it means people who would have otherwise purchased a physical copy will now just purchase a digital version) but it's better than just losing all the sales that will otherwise result from people being 'finished' with the album before it's even released.

I didn't try to handle it out of context. I don't understand what is the problem with releasing digital version early. There are mostly 2 groups - people who will go only for the media in the format convenient to them (either CD, or a download) and those who will get more products because they're more involved fans.

How does releasing one product early affect any of those groups? How does it affect sales in a bad way? Maybe I am missing something obvious, but I cannot imagine a bad result here. Fans will want to go to a gig anyways. Amon Tobin is bound to fill venues - it's not like they're fighting for customers there. If the worry is that people will buy only one format and not both, they could always offer pre-orders.

> MSI them (MSI makes the disk violate redbook so it can't be ripped)

That, unfortunately, sounds very naive. What reason do you have to believe MSI won't be broken soon? (Assuming it hasn't already been broken.)

(Limiting pre-release distribution is certainly a good approach to the problem though.)

Of course its naive. I ripped MSI using optical out from an old CD player into Quicktime. Oops.

'Why wait 3 months to listen to an album if you can get it today?'

Well, I know I'm in an ever-decreasing minority here, but: because that's the legal thing to do?

I've always had a hard time understanding the argument 'I'm forced to steal this because I'm unable to buy it.' To me, items like CDs or computer games are luxury goods, not a right. Maybe it goes back to my teens when I'd eagerly save up my pocket money to buy the latest 12" single and be excited when something was released from one of my favourite bands...

Would I like all DVDs to be region-free? For every bit of consumable content to be available world-wide at the same time? For the price of things I enjoy to be lowered? Absolutely! But, for better or worse, that's not how the world is at the moment. I guess I'm just one of those crazies who accepts that and tries to live within the current rules.

The problem isn't "the music industry" the problem is "the music industries".

Each country has its own little equivalents of the RIAA and MPAA.

And that is one of the 'secret sauces' underpinning the success of Apple's iTunes store... because nobody else had the sheer bloodymindedness (or resources) to sit down with and browbeat a hundred different "national music unions" into submission (read as: accepting that digital music wasn't going to go away if they stuck their head in the sand).

On this specific matter, as far as I can tell, (and I'd be happy to be corrected if I'm wrong) Apple hasn't beaten them into submission at all.

If I want to buy music from another country, I need a separate account for that country, and I need either a credit card or an imported iTunes gift card from that country. Using multiple accounts on a single iPod, while now possible, isn't exactly fun, since I have to switch accounts to even get updates for free apps, much less make purchases. All this, of course, wouldn't be an issue if the same music was available in all regions.

Don't get me wrong, I give Apple credit where it's due in getting the RIAA and MPAA on board, but as far as I can tell, they haven't done anything to fight region-based market segmentation - not that anyone else really has.

Region based market segmentation is a whole different problem. How about just being able to sell digital music in Latmonroviastan in the first place? It was a good two years from the opening of the iTunes music store in the US before the iTunes music store in Canada opened - and that's Canada! We're practically the 51st state! Last I checked, none of the really cool music services like rdio or pandora were available outside US territory.

Update: I was wrong. Rdio made it here. Yay!

Interesting... Now I wonder how easy would it be to create a service which on request buys any geo-restricted mp3s from amazon (from servers / account in a specific country) and resells them at cost + profit to any place in the world. I know there were many attempts to make reselling music illegal, but I don't think anything was ever proven. Would there be any big problems with a service like this?

Don't worry, self-publishing for musicians will gradually become the norm.

All music I've bought in the past decade was directly from the artist. That way I actually feel I'm supporting them.

Gradually? I'm an independent musician and though I may form a label (read: trading company) it's all DIY. My friends are the same - some of whom have been quite successful. I live in New Zealand, if you think the US industry doesn't get it, the Australasian arm is worse. It's been like this for a while too.

For some perspective: it's already available for streaming in Russia, http://music.yandex.ru/#!/album/216636 (but you can't see it from outside four CIS countries)

It looks like that having a powerful music industry in your non-US country makes your chances of getting music you want on time worse, not better. That industry would buy out rights and sit on them.

Can't our brethren across the pond buy direct from amazon.com? About 7 years ago, I bought an entire series on DVD direct from the amazon.co.uk because the DVD rights in the US hadn't been negotiated (or something). Sure, it was the wrong region, but I watched them on a PC anyway.

The entire global scheme for rights of various media needs to get sorted out. I mean, in spite of huge demand, it took many, many years before Twin Peaks got released on DVD. When I take the time to think about it, I still get pissed that I can't buy/rent China Beach on DVD.

The whole system is indeed shooting itself in the foot, and I can't fault anyone who uses illegal downloads to fulfill a demand that the media industry cannot (or will not) supply for.

They're running out of feet to shoot.

There are bunch of online music labels springing up. What really needs to happen (at least from my limited point of view) is for some of those to wind up in the Pandora (or other) feeds and then it's game over for the traditional labels. Or so I hope.

Explain how the traditional label structure is killed by online labels showing up in Pandora.

If it's any consolation, the (e)book industry is even worse.

Try finding A Game of Thrones as an ebook if you live outside the US. It's only been out for 15 years, so I guess I shouldn't expect too much.

I had imagined that maybe publishers would like to make money from people attracted by the new HBO series. But I guess that's why I'm not in the book publishing industry, because I obviously understand nothing about how to make money.

Edit: looks like I might be able to get a Kindle version. I don't have a Kindle, but given the inability of anyone except Amazon to deliver I might have to switch platforms.

The kindle/amazon is not always a solution either. I live in Canada and there is nothing I hate more than being given a suggestion (from amazon) about a book for my kindle, only to find that it's "not available in your area" when I go to purchase. I normally rage a bit, then find a torrent.

And music's not the only industry.

I'm from Romania, and we're literally begging Apple and Microsoft to take our money. To no avail.

As for the buying the CD and torrenting the MP3`s in the meanwhile, I do the same thing and the CD just ends up... sitting there.

But hey, I have the impression I supported my favorite artist.

There are a few people who profit from this silliness and lack of efficiency. But these artist don't realize it hurts them more than their management, it hurts the artist image and limits their exposure to new fans.

What's the difference between this, movies(both theatrical and DVD release), video games, or books? All of those usually have different release dates for different countries.

This can be sold as a digital download negating any geographical boundaries.

So can they. The answer is: its the music industry, which welcomes broad generalizations and rash judgement.

In 2011, having different releases dates per country is not relevant anymore.

I'm confident that consumers will continue to work around shady business schemes and endless legal oddities.

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