Everything in its little box...

[drcuriosity]

Ms Tizard says New Zealand music makers have been losing out because of piracy. "What we were worried about in particular was peer-to-peer file sharing. New Zealanders who make music and films can lose everything almost overnight if their work is illegally posted. One of the big recording studios told me that whereas a couple of years ago they were fully booked and when they were giving time away it was at 4am, now they are only about 60 per cent booked."

[Source: Chance of copyright solution 'fluffed', The Dominion Post]

Of course, this would have nothing to do with (A) the fact that we're looking down the barrel of an economic recession and (B) the rise in availability and quality of tools allowing people to do reasonable audio production outside of a big recording studio, would it.

As far as I'm aware, illegal file sharing hasn't suddenly become popular in the last two years, has it?

Comments

[basal-surge.livejournal.com]

She would appear to have no idea how the intertubes works, anyway. I suspect a backhander somewhere.

[happyevilslosh.livejournal.com]

I can't speak for anyone else but I don't think I have much in the way of pirated NZ music...

[specialknives.livejournal.com]

Oh dear, how sad!

[slothphil.livejournal.com]

I certainly don't have any I downloaded from the Internet.

[drcuriosity]

I wouldn't be too surprised, considering how angry she purportedly got when people started protesting against the law change. It did sound somewhat disproportionate, though granted it could just have been a bad day for her.

[winterdenni.livejournal.com]

As a New Zealand Musician, I'd like to say that the main reason that people are going to big studio's less is that an average of $250-$500 an hour is too much for anyone except big record labels.

[drcuriosity]

My usual experience with NZ music seems to be:
1. Hear about it via word of mouth or at some social gathering
2. Check it out online
3. Purchase it through whatever distribution channel is adds the most value/gives the biggest cut to the artist, if it's any good
4. Go to a gig if I can afford it and it's local enough

-or, courtesy of my last job-

1. Hear it overplayed on the radio
2. Ignore it

[thehollowmen.livejournal.com]

I think the availability of filesharing in NZ has increased given Telecom's Go Large scheme, which took broadband into homes. Programs too have become more user friendly.

The average user can now download much more, faster, and with less fuss.

But, in spite of this, sales both domestically and internationally have been falling since the 90s.

Player technology has outpaced the market. To fill a 30 gig iPod from iTunes would cost about 19900 US dollars. (1.99 per song, 3 megs a song) Vendor locking, such as iPods only being able to be filled with songs from iTunes, would kill an player brand.

But that hasn't lessened the arguments against the quality of music produced by major labels. Most CDs have one, maybe three hits at most on them. Head back 20 years and there was much per album. This is why iTunes and other sites with songs for sale have taken off so well. Who wants the excess garbage? Funny enough, there is an article about sales of software through steam and the ability of the producer to change the price of the product on whim, and how the demand curve is changed in these situations. I won't go into supply curves here, because it should be pretty obvious that online sales have near unlimited potential sales.

I'm not rationalising my situation here, I don't have much in the way of NZ music or movies, and yes I do have NZ cds and DVDs of what I like. I think technology (and then social acceptance) of this has outpaced law and the major labels.

Funnily enough, just about everything you view on the internet is in violation of NZ's censorship laws. We base ours on the UK law, and everything we 'import' needs to be reviewed and classified by the chief censor. I kid you not. Somebody better address that issue before it is clamped down on.

[starlick.livejournal.com]

Amen brother!

[drcuriosity]

...ow. That definitely explains why more people are deciding to invest in a good microphone and a copy of GarageBand and/or ProTools. Even if you are having to pick it up as you go along, your time would have to be worth a heck of a lot in order to make that kind of studio fee worthwhile.

[thehollowmen.livejournal.com]

http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/693342/Live-Blog-DICE-2009-Keynote---Gabe-Newell-Valve-Software.html
if you're interested

[drcuriosity]

Funny enough, there is an article about sales of software through steam and the ability of the producer to change the price of the product on whim, and how the demand curve is changed in these situations.

For anyone who's interested in this, coverage from the DICE '09 Summit on Gamasutra here. A salient portion below:

Pricing As A Service

The retail model of “lower the price until the game ends up in the bargain bin” is purely a function of “friction in the [retail] system,” Newell argues – it’s not a necessary pricing model outside of brick-and-mortar stores.

In reality, he says, with an online service, pricing can be moved up or down depending on appropriate data, those changes can be executed instantly, and customer response data will be available “within five minutes.”

“Last weekend, we decided to do an experiment,” he says, referring to this past weekend’s Left 4 Dead sale, which brought the game down to $24.99 through Steam – sales rose 3000 percent, and revenue far eclipsed the game’s sales during its launch window.

Meanwhile, Newell notes, retail sales did not change at all (full Steam integration allows Valve to monitor retail sales as well) – defeating the assumption that Steam sales cannibalize retail sales.

[happyevilslosh.livejournal.com]

See I don't even do that. My music tastes are most often bands that are scandinavian or germanic in origin. NZ just doesn't typically make music I overly enjoy.

[drcuriosity]

Aha. Cheers :-)

[drcuriosity]

In my case it's usually fairly niche - some of what little Goth/Industrial stuff we have, for example.

Excepting what I picked up on person at GenCon or from robert_from_ap when I was in the U.S., I've made more purchases from Line Out Records in the UK than anywhere else in the last couple of years. Despite amon_zero from Xykogen being an ex-New Zealander (he used to flat with Vaughan, I think), I wouldn't have bought most of the music I got from there if I hadn't first heard a fair chunk of it via free internet downloads supplied by the artists.

[drcuriosity]

http://rob-the.geek.nz/2008/10/nz-copyright-act-section-92a.html

[aleph-naught.livejournal.com]

She gives every impression of being a very silly and arrogant woman.