Are CD Prices Coming Down?

We have long criticized the absurd Retail pricing of CDs. A few years ago, we asked the question Are CD Prices Getting More Dynamic?

It seems that some people in the industry have actually read The Long Tail, and figured out that they are better off pricing older catalog CDs aggressively, and actually selling them, rather than maintaining an absurd list price for 20, 30, even 50 year old recordings, and letting them sit in some warehouse somewhere unsold.

At the same time, it must be mentioned that the preponderence of utterly brain damaged morons in positions of authority in the Music Biz has not attenuated one tiny bit. They are the anti Long Tailers, also known as The Fat Heads.

The latest evidence of blunt head trauma syndrome is via this little piece of advanced rocketry: To sell used CDs in some states, at the behest of the industry, you are required to: 1) have your fingerprints taken; 2) endure a 30 day waiting period; 3) only recieve store credit for used CDs (not cash).

Idiots.

~~~

Meanwhile, in the world of online retailing, Amazon has done a decent job taking CDs and recordings that are Long Tail — either via age, or obscurity, or just overdue — and making them available at more competitive prices.

As traditional CD sellers disappear, the long tail catalog will be found increasingly at Online retailers, while the Big BOx (Wal Mart, Best Buy, Target) only carries the latest top 50 hits.

It makes smart business sense to use Amazon to blow them out.

After the jump, there’s a handful of Discs I pulled from Amazon — most are $7.97 . . .

>

Sources:
NARM Coverage: New Laws Threaten Used CD Market
Ed Christman, Chicago
Billboard May, 01, 2007 – Retail
http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/content_display/industry/e3i9ebf2d8ce6fd1e267bac18d43959ac24

Record shops: Used CDs? Ihre papieren, bitte!
Ken Fisher
Ars Technica,May 07, 2007 – 01:23PM CT
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070507-record-shops-used-cds-ihre-papieren-bitte.html

Jazz

: Blue Train

John Coltrane Blue Train

: Time Out

Time Dave Brubeck Out

: The Sidewinder

Lee Morgan The Sidewinder

: Our Man in Paris

Dexter Gordon Our Man in Paris

: Go!

Dexter Gordon: Go!

(We covered Dexter Gordon extensively last month)

: Moanin'

Art Blakely Moanin’

: About the Blues

Julie LondonAbout the Blues

: Embraceable You

Chet Baker Embraceable You

(Chet also got the treatment not too long ago)

: Love Songs

Etta James Love Songs

: Ella Fitzgerald 3 CD Set (LP edition packaging)

Ella Fitzgerald 3 CD Set (LP edition packaging)

There are so many great Ella sets — I never heard this one — but 3 CDs at this price?

Classic Rock

: Are You Experienced
Jime Hendrix Are You Experienced

: Boston
Boston

: Outlandos d'Amour [Digipak]
Police Outlandos d’Amour

: Zenyatta Mondatta [Digipak]
Police Zenyatta Mondatta

: Ghost In The Machine [Digipak]
Police Ghost In The Machine

: Crowded House
Crowded House

: Too Old to Rock: Too Young To Die
Jethro Tull Too Old to Rock: Too Young To Die

: The Who Sell Out
The Who Sell Out

: Cat Stevens - Greatest Hits
Cat Stevens – Greatest Hits

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What's been said:

Discussions found on the web:
  1. Gene commented on May 8

    One of the reasons that CD prices haven’t come down is that artist contracts in some cases don’t allow it (certainly in the case of superstars or even those who have had good success along the way). Artists historically have been reluctant to be put in the bargain bin as it was a sign their careers were over. Some of it is vanity, some of it is to protect against, e.g., an old label undercutting new product on a new label after an artist has moved, and some of it is that the volume increase isn’t enough to make up for the per unit royalty loss (not only is the price upon which the artist is paid reduced, but generally the royalty rate is also reduced on the lower price units, so it’s a double whammy and a triple whammy if you’re an artist that writes your material because your mechanical royalties for the songs are also reduced). The issue from the label’s perspective is different, of course.

    Now, as the front line prices have been moving lower of late, the business dynamic is changing. But I have at least one superstar client who routinely declines all reduced price requests from the label. And having seen the numbers, from this client’s perspective is just isn’t worth it.

  2. Eclectic commented on May 8

    Go here:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kwgi2c2zFco

    …Cue it up twice… start one, and then start the other one just as the first phrase:

    “At last… my love has come alon(g).” ends. Start the second one dead on (g) and listen.

    A tad of whiskey can’t hurt.

  3. Tyrone Slothrop commented on May 8

    What’s so dumb from the industry’s perspective about discouraging the sale of used CDs? I’m not saying that I like it, but aren’t they just using the law to limit competition?

  4. Craig commented on May 8

    Are you kidding Tyrone? It’s a copy of a PAID FOR peice of copyrighted material. IOW, YOUR (or my) personal property. You know, the law. The rights to the copy being sold are paid by the original purchaser (me or you), much like all those used VHS tapes or used books you can buy anywhere without fingerprinting waiting periods, or other totally moronic and unenforceable forms of asshattedness.

    Are these dickheads going to stop my listing my used CD’s on craigslist in another state? Do you suppose they have enough state police to patrol for the terrorist plot to sell used CDs on eBay?

    How effective have they been in stopping piracy, downloading, etc up until now?

    That’s right…..Zippo.

    No, it’s beyond dumb from any perspective.

    Instead of earning further ill will and spending money to needlessly irritate their potential customers, they could actually MAKE MONEY if they used their huge libraries, scale and distribution to outcompete used discs and make those customers happy.

    If you could buy some of those discs for $7.95, some remastered and with additional material (guaranteed should there be some defect), would you waste time on a used one for $5?

  5. Estragon commented on May 9

    The clear intent here is to limit the market for stolen CD’s. There are all sorts of limitations and intrusions on your rights by the state made on the premise that in so doing, the state is better able to protect you.

    How is this any different?

  6. Craig commented on May 9

    No. That’s the BS “logic” they try to pass by average dufuses. The clear intent is to 1. try to get in on the sale of someone else’s property or 2. to infringe on sales of less expensive, used, yet identical competitive products. Used cars with no miles.
    How is it different? Do you think Ford, GM, et al should be able to stop you from selling your used cars or that you should only be able to trade it in for credit on your next car after a background check and a 30 day waiting period? Have you lost your mind?

    I’m not renting or leasing a CD, I’m BUYING it. THEY are trying to change the terms of the sale AFTER the fact.

    Note that these hypocritical asswipes don’t want to pass legislation protecting you from stolen firearms. Noooo! THAT would actually protect someone from something.
    Where is that law?

    And where is the law “protecting us” from stolen cassettes and LPs? And let’s not forget antiques, art, cars, coins, books, all collectibles really. And if you hold physical gold, they will need to hold that too? That address is CRAZY TOWN.

    Where is the legislation to “protect” us from collectibles being sold?
    Should Sotheby’s and Christies pack it in?

    We know how dangerous CD’s can be. Afterall, you could wipe out an entire campus with stolen CD’s so just forget those gun and knife shows.

    Have you thought about this much?

  7. Eclectic commented on May 9

    Craig,

    Let’s pick apart your comments. But first, Bondie wanted me to let you know (and you too Barringo) that if you’ll snap your fingers it’s almost June, and you boyz jiss ain’t got’chee heads riite yette.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bfqhmCCuI0

    http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=%5ETNX&t=3m

    I suspect that Dr. Benber N. Anke’ll be wantin’ to knock off a little early and maybe do the Anke family reunion this summer.

    Consequently, he probably doesn’t want to upset Bondie too much. If she gets too upset, there’ll be all those nasty parent-teacher conferences and his vacation might get canceled (canceled being a word spelled acceptably with 1 or 2 ls, although I can’t rightly remember if bofo is spelled with 1 or 2 fs — maybe AA has been to his trusty thesaurus lately and could oblige us an answer).

    On to you Craig: “quoting you” followed by my ***comments.

    “Instead of earning further ill will and spending money to needlessly irritate their potential customers,…”

    ***what customers are you talking about, the ones who are fools or the ones just asleep like Rip Van Waann-kle?

    “…they could actually MAKE MONEY if they used their huge libraries, scale and distribution to outcompete used discs and make those customers happy.”

    ***how much money did they make learnin’ old Luke Boy, just now, how to communicate?

    “If you could buy some of those discs for $7.95, some remastered and with additional material (guaranteed should there be some defect), would you waste time on a used one for $5?”

    ***well, I’m not exactly sure how my comment will fit here, because you have some trendy little discussion there about defects, but my question would be why even pay the $5, or even anything at all if you don’t have to? Plus, you can have both instant gratification and instant analysis of quality of recording all by just pushing a couple of keys on your computer.

    Frankie, above, has illustrated a Coltrane CD for us. Here’s the YouTube search for “Coltrane”:

    http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Coltrane&search=Search

    For the average person, that’ll put you in enough Coltrane to miss the train, and the only reason some of Frankie’s illustrated CD songs might not be in that que (haven’t searched it completely) is only because some enterprising soul hasn’t taken the time or had the inspiration to load them… but give ‘em time… the world is too full of amateur DJs. It imparts to oneself a very seductive and commanding sense of power.

    Here’s the YouTube search for “Pink Floyd”:

    http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=pink+floyd&search=Search

    I may be wrong but I think all of the “Echoes” parts that Barringo has referenced (somewhere?) have been uploaded to YouTube. Why buy it?…Improved bandwidth and the already superb sound quality of digitized reproductions will only get better, and the world is full of enterprising souls that will upload it all for us. They equate it to being no different than video recording their dog chasin’ a frisbee and putting it up on YouTube.

    Now, back to my prior discussions of intellectual property rights:

    Communist China and Russia must be laughing at the U.S. They must consider it truly a joke that we want them to enforce both reasonable contract law and intellectual property rights. And by inference they must assume we’re not so worried about human rights either as we make out to be. For after all, when you’ve allowed a man’s creativity to be taken from him — the creativity he uses to sustain himself — without compensation, what more can you take except his life or liberty? And what more horrendous way can you take his property than by constructing a law supposedly intended to prevent that very thing?… And yet sequence within it a tasty few morsels of loopholes that make it as phony as pro-forma EBITDA.

    My personal opinion is that Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was included as protection for digital carriers who innocently and unintentionally transmit copyrighted digital material between third parties who themselves should know better than to attempt to present that material in a public forum that so widely disperses the material that it makes a mockery of the concept of fair use. Are we asked to be so gullible as to believe some 15-year-old snot-nosed kid, one who just wants to impress his friends with his ability to segment and upload entire copyrighted Hollywood movies or professional concert performances, is actually simply making a fair use of that material within his small circle of family, friends, associates or club members?

    If the kid wants to invite his friends over and rent and watch a movie with a multiple head count for one price, then fine – that’s okay. Or if he wants to upload his own frisbee-chasin’ dog video to the whole world, he has every right to do so, and the carrier has the right to expect to be protected from some ding-dong that wants to sue because they might claim it was “their dog, their frisbee, their yard the dog was chasin’ it in”… or that it’d been “their story played out in the depicted scenes.” Those are possibly matters between the offending and offended parties truly related to copyright law, if applicable, and not the concern of the disinterested carrier in most all regards.

    However, once the copyrighted movie or concert has been uploaded and widely distributed, the damage has already been done to the owner of that intellectual property. I might go to YouTube and watch my neighbor’s frisbee-chasin’ dog or look at a car or boat offered for sale by some seller who wants to demonstrate the operation of what he’s selling… but I don’t go to YouTube to see that snot-nosed kid’s dog or any other associated digital media that nobody in their right mind would claim copyright infringement about … No, when I go to YouTube, I go there to be entertained for free… just like I’d make the special effort to go by the local bank were they handing out free money.

    Now, how many of you would like to see a video uploaded to YouTube of Barringo’s upstairs loft home office, the one with his swivel chair, his PC, his fan-failing Mac and his homing pigeon cages… or would you all rather see Pink Floyd’s concerts?… Which would attract your commercial dollars subquently attracted to YouTube advertising during the process?

    I know the difference between chicken salad and chicken shit. I wonder does our Congress know the difference.

  8. OutOfContext commented on May 9

    “For after all, when you’ve allowed a man’s creativity to be taken from him — the creativity he uses to sustain himself — without compensation, what more can you take except his life or liberty?”

    This is a pretty utopian idea of intellectual property and an artist’s benefit from it. Greed is the irritant for many middle of the road people in this debate. The greed of the non-creative factor in the Artist+Label equation. In most cases, record labels are incredibly exploitive. I do not give musicians a pass, though, for allowing themselves to be a party to their own exploitation. Their creativity, in the form of ownership of their work, is given away as much as it’s taken. Dick Dale gives a lecture to aspiring artists illustrating this point.
    Bands need to work harder to create their own relationships to their fans. Labels need to accept reality, let go of memories of the glory days and find new ways of making money which would make sharing a less appealing alternative.

  9. Craig commented on May 9

    OOC, Very succinctly said.

    I’m not taking anything from anyone. I BOUGHT the copyrighted material and when and if I choose to sell the disc the copyright that was paid for goes with it.

    Mr. Eclectic, you must not have heard real high fidelity recordings. I pay the extra dough for the quality of the recording and in some cases actually buy LPs because digital isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and the asshats won’t release some of their material. Like “Journey Through the Past”.

    No, they seem to want to repeat the past and that’s working so well, no?

  10. oocRadio commented on May 9

    You Don’t Own Me

    … One of the songs we listened to was Leslie Gore’s “You Don’t Own Me”, which is really an ominous sounding record.

    Turns out, if I owned this cd and tried to sell it in Florida, I would have a difficult time proving Leslie wrong:…

  11. Craig commented on May 9

    Oh, Bondie, I didn’t see you standing there!
    You look great! Did you get a new hairdo? A boob job? Something is different.
    It looks like you filled-out a couple basis points. Not a lot, you aren’t getting fat or anything and you are still above the trend line, so not to worry yet.

    You really should hang out with a better crowd though….

  12. Eclectic commented on May 9

    Craig,

    Bondie just had a minor upper-right augmentation, but they’re small. Anything more’n a mouthful is just a waste anyway. Nothing wrong with you eyesight, but I would suggest your ears can’t hear the fidelity you think they can. Fidelity of frequency perception is a lot like fidelity of beer brand perception. They’re both regularly subject to hyperbole.

    Outofcontext:

    Not only were you not in the right pew, but you weren’t even in the church… and barely in the parking lot… and way too far away to have heard the sermon.

    Nothing I wrote relates in the slightest to the matter of contractual dealings or the fairness of such between artists and their various administrative associates… labels, managers, accountants, agents or others that may or may not take advantage of them. None of that prevents the intellectual property from existing and its existence was my only focus. I figure all those persons mentioned are capable of protecting their own interests when dealing with each other, or they’d better learn how to protect them.

    But, none of them, singularly or collectively, have the capacity to protect whatever intellectual property rights they do have (in whatever proportion to the total that exists) from 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, not perfectly anyway, and the protections available are likely to cost near as much or more than the damages would cost for having no protections in the first place.

  13. Craig commented on May 9

    Agreed, as the number of possible parties to protect said property from is enormous.
    As a Corporate Official I have defended such rights to copyrighted material citing the DMCA but there was only one party so it was a no brainer requiring no legal action aside from a simple letter.

    Something in high demand like music is going to be problematic. No, impossible.

    As far as music, well music is more than frequencies. That’s the problem with compressed digital music files. First the compression by it’s very nature removes data, which in case anyone hasn’t noticed, is *music*, so the result lacks dynamic range and that makes it flat and without space. So they give you only a portion of the real recording, which is why you can fit all those songs on your iPod when before they whacked the hell out of them you couldn’t. Then subtract whatever gets whacked in the sampling rate and you have cardboard flat “music” that sounds alright through earphones, which have no space or soundstage, so it sounds good to you as the expectation isn’t for an upper end audio system but a fricking ipod. MP3 files are good for iPods and most car stereos. But like everything else in life there are levels of quality and the sky is the limit when compared to your iPod.

    Let me assure you, that same mp3 compressed digital copy sounds flat, narrow and lifeless on a system that reveals the limitations of the compression in A/B comparisons to the full version.

  14. OutOfContext commented on May 10

    I will apologize to eclectic for taking his quote out of its context (truth in pseudonym, at least) in order to make a tangential point. As penance for missing the sermon, I read the entire text of 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. I do not concede that my entire comment was from left field (I prefer baseball analogy). I can’t see how protection will catch up with the demand for dishonest innovation. I think subscription services like Napster-To-Go and eMusic are a way to provide a somewhat open avenue of profiting from music. I would pay for youTube if it provided legal on-demand video of my favorite artists.
    I am admittedly a novice in this area, but I find it a fascinating and vital topic and come to discussions like these to learn through engagement. I would appreciate any suggestions for further reading.
    Craig’s right about quality. I never buy through iTunes or Napster, ’cause if I really like the music, I want a cd of it to play on the home stereo.

  15. Eclectic commented on May 10

    Craig,

    A CD *is* digital media, and thus if quality can be put into digits, it can be taken out in digits and converted to analog, which is the way we hear sound.

    Outofcontext,

    No need to apologize. This is free and easy discourse.

    My interpretation of 512 (I’ve read it too) is that were I to desire to construct an operational model that gave a disingenuous nod to illegal copyright uploaders, I’d think that 512 was the manna dropped down from heaven.

  16. Eclectic commented on May 11

    Outofcontext and Craig:

    http://www.howstuffworks.com/cd5.htm

    If you’ll read through 512 again, you’ll notice that nothing is mentioned about the sound quality or fidelity issues regarding uploaded digital media that is subsequently claimed to be copyright infringement, but only issues of the direction and control of the uploading itself.

    What I mean is that you two both state preferences for richer and deeper sound, both in frequency and in spatial orientation, that you generally mention are the reasons to prefer owning and operating a CD to downloading the same material from a carrier. Your preferences do not present functional limitations for the carrier… not for the uploader… and not for the technology that delivers the sound to downloaders.

    They are only practical limitations in some cases and to some degree based on any particular carrier’s willingness and capacity for large file storage, or for the capability of both the uploader’s equipment to modify the files and the downloader’s equipment to use those files and extract fidelity and range.

    Remember that 512 actually prohibits the carrier from altering the files if they wish to maintain protection from copyright infringement claims. They also have to receive and distribute the files in an automated process; they must not select the recipients, not select the files to be uploaded, and they must have processes in place to respond to copyright notification, to identify offenders when properly notified by the offended party, and to remove offending media and sanction repeat offenders.

  17. OutOfContext commented on May 11

    Eclectic,
    My mention was more of an aside (I’ll take your word on 512, I’m not reading that again soon). There is nothing preventing folks from uploading lossless files but the limitations of current storage (and the greed for more files rather than better quality). This difference will surely disappear as storage space becomes even less of an issue. In fact, in the long run, any arguments which include quality factor skirt the issue.
    I will stick my neck out and say that there is no way to stop illegal copying. I use Audacity for podcasting and creating sound files and it makes perfect duplicates by simply digitally recording whatever is played on your computer absolutely without detection.
    You can combat it by throwing people in jail, restricting the exposure your material gets (how many people will by stuff sight unseen), or finding a way of making copying more trouble than it’s worth, preferably by making it cheap, legal and available. Guess which one I prefer.

  18. OutOfContext commented on May 11

    BTW, have you seen this bit of brilliance? A DRM technology company attempting to sue Apple and friends for not using their product.

  19. Tyrone Slothrop commented on May 12

    Are you kidding Tyrone?

    As a consumer, I don’t like it. But that (alone) doesn’t make them morons for doing it.

  20. Eclectic commented on May 14

    Outofcontext:

    BTW, you gotta get a better name – why not just use “Out?” – it’s clean, easy to type and, well, it’s like “Ed” but vastly more personalized. I mean… ever known anyone known as Out?… Not me. You’d be the only Out on The Big Picture.

    The novel claim of that California company does present a very interesting approach.

    Basically, they are saying that since the “Bigs” are responsible for the players than are involved in the production of copyright infringement, that they have not just a responsibility but a legal requirement under the provisions of DMCA to use this company’s “proven technology” in preventing it… and that would of course be by licensing the technology and building it into the players. Truly novel.

    Let’s see… hmmm?… that would be like attempting to force a firearm manufacturer to install some chip in a firearm that prevented it from being used to kill someone (by preventing the mechanism from operating during the committing of crime), or preventing it from being used, if only threateningly, in committing crime (by interceding in the intentions of the likely offender). I think that’s been sort of done, since the firearms manufacturers either had to produce the trigger guards themselves or buy them from some other provider in order to sell them in jurisdictions where trigger guards were required.

    Why, you might even extend the claim to the utility companies that provide the electricity to power the players… I suppose this discussion is philosophically endless.

    But, that’s the point of what I’m saying. It’s not philosophically endless. It only appears to be because of the loss of common sense in the approach of 512. Copyright infringers infringe with automation just like killers kill with guns… and in these two cases it’s not the automation or the guns, but the offenders that do the illegal acts.

    The common sense I’m talking about is that the o-f-f-e-n-d-e-r in copyright infringement is the party that should be attacked, and all 512 does is to provide the offender with a disingenuous cohort that’ll help him infringe (albeit innocently, says the carrier – wink wink) because their own self interests are served by him doing it, because those self interests are actually protected by 512. Here again we have an example of what Adam Smith was talking about when he issued his admonition of “dealers” within the subclasses of merchants and manufacturers because their interests only seemed to be aligned with that of the general public, but in reality were very often not.

    Society is benefited by the technological innovation and cultural enrichment provided by intellectual property, and if that property is not protected, creativity just becomes a prisoner of whatever authority controls the society. A democratic society protects its intellectual creativity. A totalitarian society suppresses it.

    Out, you express the notion that you’d pay for content that was cheap, legal and available. Unfortunately, most of the people who obtain and consume free copyrighted content already relish the idea that it’s free. Why would they suddenly have the attitude you express that they would be willing as well to pay for it if it were cheap?… Ah, it’s because there’s nothing cheaper than something that’s free, so what they’re actually saying is that they want the freedom to infringe on copyright protected intellectual property at will, or benefit from others that infringe it, or they’ll pay for it if it’s… free. That’s too Catch-22ish if you’ll think about it. I don’t literally mean you, Out. I take you at your word.

    Another point on 512.

    It seems that the major protection that 512 gives carriers is the opportunity to claim that their automated systems don’t have the capacity to determine if the material is copyright protected. In other words, they want us to believe that innocence derives from automation and its anonymity within the process. However, at the same time they are claiming their systems are just automatic and “don’t know any better,” some of them inform uploaders that material including senseless depravity, vulgarity, violence, personal slurs or racially offensive images or language will be promptly removed.

    Unless I miss my guess, true carriers of digital material don’t really care if person A sends something vulgar or racially offensive to person B, because it doesn’t get into the public domain. I can write my friend an email and tell him all sort of racial, ethnic, depraved, vulgar or otherwise offensive stories, jokes or anecdotes. My email carrier doesn’t give a damn if I do that… even if I email a pretty wide circle of associates. I could cut and paste almost anything I wanted to, copyrighted or non-copyrighted, whether I owned the copyright or not… and they wouldn’t care, even if they knew it, because it won’t get into the public domain. 512 was designed to protect them from spurious claims of infringement and random real claims of offended parties when I do transmit something that the carrier would ordinarily care about if they had the time to review everything I transmitted, and they don‘t of course. That’s what 512 speaks to. It wasn’t designed to protect a carrier from putting the nature of my communication with a small circle of friends and associates on the cover of The Rolling Stone, so that the whole word could download and read it 753,000 times.

    I wonder… what is it about the automatic systems that makes them capable of discerning the above prohibited attributes, but at the same time the systems are blind to the fact that some yo-yo has uploaded an entire copyright protected movie?… Well, the answer is that the systems can’t do it. People (staffers) have to do that, people who on the one hand can detect with amazing clarity if someone has uploaded a video of a cadaver being used as a doorstop, but don’t seem to notice that entire Pink Floyd concerts are segmented and uploaded. I’m not just speaking of the filtering of key words such as the ‘n’ word. I’m talking about the even subtle examples of morbid, violent or depraved images or sounds that no automatic system can perfectly detect. But they detect them… and remove them.

    It seems to me that if they can detect those subtleties, they could detect gross examples of copyright infringement that anybody with any common sense could easily determine. Too, it’s funny that the snot-nosed kid’s frisbee-chasin’ dog video gets watched 124 times and yet the same kid’s uploading of some professional concert that he doesn’t have the rights or permissions for gets watched 753,000 times.

    Pretty wide circle of friends, family and associates if you ask me… Why, there’s not half that many members of my own family’s website. We must all be introverted.

    I suppose you’d have to want to detect infringement were you a carrier, and 512 only lets you detect what you want to detect, but blame what you don’t want to detect on automation. I say, tell that damn automation to leave the cadaver vids alone, if they don’t mind!

    That brings me to my final idea. What not just write into 512 another paragraph or two that lets the offended party in copyright infringement cases just go after the computers?… Now, that’s a novel approach, Out… just let the motor truckers sue the automation. In fact, they could have automated attorneys filing automated legal briefs filed against the automatic computers of the carriers. We could have automation lawsuits on Court TV.

    Here’s a scene:

    Judge: “The defendant server will please rise.”

    (Automation stands)

    Judge: “This court finds you, Auto M. Ation, guilty of copyright infringement on all counts. Is there anything you wish to say before sentencing?”

    Automation: “I shot the Sheriff… but-I-did-not-shoot-the-Dep-u-ty.”

    Judge: “Yes, Mr. Ation, that’s one of the counts, but is that all you want to say before sentencing?”

    Automation: “But… but, Your Honor, it was all in my programming… I tell ya it wasn’t my f-a-u-l-t.”

    Judge (revealed to be a robot – hangs on digital words): “Unfor-un-un-un-un-forforforforfor… unfortunate-nate-nate-nate-ley, Mister-ister-ister-ister-ister-ister A-A-A-AtionAtionAtionAtion, you had the capacity totototototototo knowknowknowknowknowknow.”

    We could even have an automated Supreme Court to handle the inevitable appeal… which would of course be an automatic appeal.

  21. Eclectic commented on Jun 14

    Barringo, this is still one of the most thought provoking topics you’ve ever posted.

    You ought to lift it forward with this new information:

    http://tinyurl.com/yu2ots

    If video fingerprinting technology is indeed available and is capable of successfully blocking (or identifying) the uploading of snot-nosed kid copyright infringement, then the raison d’être for many carriers would be a little less être.

    What this would do would be to put an active and willing robot alongside the robot that accepts the automatic uploads, as a sort of Robocop for 512… a tireless, sleepless guard dog if you will.

    Okay… so now we’re getting somewhere… to a place where negotiated content makes sense, to where it’s fair to all parties while protecting intellectual property rights… and too, it doesn’t deprive the snot-nosed kid of impressing his relatively small circle of friends and family with his frisbee-chasin’ dog video that nobody wants to watch except that small circle.

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