Re: Vista and XSI?

[jordibares <jordibares(at)the-mill.com>]

Title: Re: Vista and XSI?

On 31/1/07 21:06, "peter boeykens" <peter_b(at)skynet.be> wrote:

>  
> > On 30/1/07  22:45, "peter boeykens" <peter_b(at)skynet.be>  wrote:
> >  
> > > Im probably going to be flamed but here goes  anyway...
> > >
> > > isnt it normal with everybody having access to digital  copying hardware and
> > > software, with illegal copies of all kinds of media  and software being so
> > > widespread, and with the sales for music CD's going  ever downwards,
> >  
> > You  are suggesting the sales of CDs going downwards is due to the illegal  copying/downloading of content, and that is just incorrect. If you find the  statistics of the high street market you will see the same tendencies on all  the areas, specially clothing so this is just a global situation due to our  economics.
> >
> > When the government raises the interests to 5.25 that will  have an impact on retail, and that includes CDs, the trick the industry is  playing is that by blaming the piracy they will get away securing a hugely  profitable bussiness model that rips artists and makes the businessman  fatter.
>  
> I dont buy this argument at all.
> This sounds like a bad interpretation of statistics. 
> Its not because interests go up and music sales go down that there is a direct relationship.
 
It clearly is one of the factors of many and you should have another look at it because clearly there is a relationship. Of course the trend of X factor and American Idol and the horrible trend of manufacturing bands and artists are not helping. The fact that people now can access artists directly does obviously have a  more options and the awareness of being ripped of too.

I didn’t want to give the impression that that only factor (interest rates) does have alone such an impact but think twice because is bigger than you think. (for example, in London a 0.25% means another 600 pounds a year in many many cases, also means http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6316097.stm, and also means http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6041458.stm, so yes, it has a huge impact.

> I remain very much convinced that music sales go down because of the ease of copying music at CD quality.
 
Always has been easy to copy music, probably even more than nowadays, from tapes to unprotected CDs we have done copies and the sky was not falling like now.
Nobody can build a relationship between illegal sharing and the down on sales, which obviously is affected by so many factors.

> I believe (but thats of course open to discussion) that record companies have a bad reaction on their sales going down: they focus on mainstream, high sales, commercial music, and avoid alternative music. Simply put they react by releasing more crap and less good music.

Precisely

> Also, they increase prices of media to compensate for sales going down, thus penalising the people that are purchasing music.
> Both of these work aversely IMO.
 
But of course, and I know the cost of producing a full CD, distributed, put on the shelves and all that costs just 2 pounds, where do goe the other 18 pounds? Not to the artists further penalizing the artists and making them move on towards playing gigs instead of producing new music? Sell via internet where http://www.macmegasite.com/node/3376
> > that
> > some initiative is taken to make piracy more  difficult?
> > most of us find it perfectly normal to pay for our XSI  license. But when it
> > comes to movies and music, and additional software,  and what not, people
> > become less picky.
>  
> Wait  a minute, the problem is not about paying for a good, is about being ripped  for far too long. An artist that has put together a CD with his songs,  receives 10p for each album they sell!! Where is going the  rest?
> Its not because the artists are not receiving enough money that illegal copying is justified.
>  
> And its not like all of that money goes to the evil record companies either.
> A huge part of the purchase price goes to the store, the distributor and to the government.
> Im not sure if you meant 10p as in 10 pence or 10 percent for the artist.
> 10% is a pretty accurate average.
No, I literally mean 10 pence.
 
> I just checked my local copyright organisation, and their info is as follows:
> the price of a CD in the store (100%) is distributed as follows:
> 17% vat, 11% store, 7% copyright, 5,5% material cost, 14% recording studio, 14 to 21% producer, 2(!) to 30% artist,  2 to 30% marketing and promotion.

Here in the UK that is not the situation, that is all I can tell you.

> how much an artist earns depends on his contract, and it varies from hardly anything (2%) to a huge part (30%), and the more an artist is famous, the higher his percentage. The extremes both are unreasonable.
> Small, unknown artists dont get a lot, and would be better off with a small / independent label.
> Big artists get huge amounts of money. 
And small artists don’t live from the CDs, live from gigs.

> Fulltime professional artists get an average 10%, which should make a decent living. But overall sales going down does affect their income substantially.  
>  
 Again, they don’t live from their music unless the have a big luck hit or a commercial uses the song and he becomes mainstream, the case of artists like Jose Gonzalez http://www.bravia-advert.com/music/
> >  
> > If  you look back not many people had problems paying for AllofMp3.com!!! Why?  Because the prices were reasonable, okay they were in an illegal situation but  my point is that the problem is the industry as a whole trying to squeaze the  chicken a bit more.
> I totally agree with the "reasonable price" argument. I know I would be spending a lot more on music if the prices were 2/3 to 1/2 of what they currently are. Personally I buy most of my music second hand now because of this. 
> >  
My naïve thinking tells me everybody wants to have to proper album/cover/panflet if they were priced correctly. Paying 23 pounds for a 9 track album is just a rip-off. 
>  
> > Most of us wouldnt consider stealing anything  physical ever, but when it
> > comes to data, everybody's in?
> > Can any of  us here pretend to never have copied media he didnt pay for? I
> > dont think  so.
> > And most of us here even depend from media for a  living...
>  
>
> Can you guarantee you will lose a customer if that customer has  downloaded a track? 
>  
> NO because that person may not spend a single penny to check if he likes  X or Y.
> In any case you will find new things and buy them so you are  getting new customers.
>  
>  
> do you lose customers if your music is easily available for free illegal download? hell yeah.
 
No, you don’t lose anything. This lost customer would have never bought that in the first place so you can’t say you have lost anything. I would say this could trigger you get a new customer as he may like that album and go to the store and buy the next one too (like I have done countless occasions when someone plays a song I like and ask “who is this??”) 
> > Anyway  I think this goes a bit off the thread for the  moment.
> >
> >
> >  
> > > Wether or not the OS is the proper place to fight  piracy is another issue.
> > > But its probably the only way to do so  effectively.
> > > I dont particularly like such initiatives, but the  collective behaviour of
> > > computer users doesnt leave much room for  alternatives.
> >  
> >
> > I feel you should avoid putting all of us in the same pot, such a  generalization is just wrong.
> >  
> >  
> Im not putting all of us in the same pot. 
> The (music) industry is.
 
You are with that comment saying our collective behavior doesn’t leave room for alternatives, that is saying “we all are liars and thefts” and that is not true.

> They are adapting to a perceived "everybody downloads illegaly" situation. (which is not accurate but not totally unfunded either) 
> As a result, the bona fide customers suffer, by paying more for less, and the ones that are downloading/copying/selling illegaly will simply continue to do so and get more clever at it. With or without DRM.
> ...
>  
> > On the other hand, such an OS is perhaps no longer  the proper basis for a
> > serious production environment, as obviously all  these built-in processes
> > are spawning like crazy and take up ever more  resources.
> > 2GB to run vista? Its downright insane. Not too long ago  windows didnt even
> > know how to handle  2GB.
> Probably this  is the only thing I agree with you, Vista seems not to be for production  environments nor the user environment were you have XP working  fine.
>
> cheers
> jb
>  
> > yada yada.
> > just my two copyrighted  eurocent.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From:  "Bradley Gabe" <withanar(at)stanwinston.com>
> > To:  <XSI(at)Softimage.COM>
> > Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2007 10:23  PM
> > Subject: RE: Vista and XSI?
> >
> >
> > "Windows"... I remember someone  once said if they had only named the
> > product "Gates", after it's founder,  it would have been more of an
> > honest tribute.
> >
> > > You have to  remember, 99% of what I do is for people using Windows.
> > > You’re  trying to suggest here that it’s as easy to work with Linux as
> > >  Windows when you’re interfacing largely with clients who use  Windows.
> > > That’s writing tools for Windows,  solving Windows  based problems,
> > > dealing with windows issues. To try and work with  anything other than
> > > Windows under such circumstances would be  foolish.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >  From:owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM [mailto:owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM]  On
> > > Behalf Of jordibares
> > > Sent: 30 January 2007 18:36
> > >  To: <XSI(at)Softimage.COM>; Kim Aldis
> > > Subject: Re: Vista and  XSI?
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > It is your choice, but it is  easy as it is easy to run windows as it
> > > is to run Linux, just get  the right distribution.
> > >
> > > Jb
> > >
> > >
> > > On  30/1/07 18:10, "Kim Aldis" <XSI(at)kim-aldis.co.uk>  wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > > -----Original  Message-----
> > > > From: owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM [mailto:owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM]  On
> > > > Behalf Of jordibares
> > > > Sent: 30 January 2007  17:52
> > > > To: <XSI(at)Softimage.COM>; Bradley Gabe
> > > >  Subject: Re: Vista and XSI?
> > > >
> > > > I know what you are  saying, but you are not forced to do so,
> > > [kim  aldis]
> > >
> > >
> > > No,you're not. But in practice it's not  always easy, or for that
> > > matter
> > > preferable, to take the  Linux, or the Mac route.
> > >
> > >
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> > >
> > >
> >
> >
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