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Melissia wrote:Basically for small independent bands, digital distribution is the way to go.

The music industry does not like having many small independent bands. It likes one or two big bands per genre. Less competition = more profit for he big companies.

That's not strictly true, or rather, it isn't true at all. In fact, now more than ever, the opposite is true. The usual rough estimate for the cost of launching a new act on a major label is around $1m. An environment in which large recording companies (and especially smaller ones, whose financial situations are usually far more precarious) are increasingly risk-averse means that, in order to find new talent, a large pool of independent acts is a necessity. Rather than the traditional method of scouting acts after receiving demo tapes and offering them deals on the back of viewing several live performances, many large labels now expect artists to take the initiative and set themselves up as a small business, releasing records and proving that there is an audience for their music by selling it. Only THEN will a label think about signing an artist and spending money which, in a climate of declining record sales, they are unlikely to recoup from a standing start.

Basically, a combination of laziness and risk aversion means that artists have to do themselves a lot of what traditionally would have been the remit of a label - launching an act into the public consciousness and building a profile via means of several early single releases. If a band can do that, they become competition and a larger, more wealthy entity simply buys them out. That's the model these days.

There are a bazillion other file hosts. Most users were shying away from megaupload and moving to others that were better, such as mediafire.

This move just helps to bring the two bills, SOPA and PIPA, into their proper, abusive light.

juraigamer wrote:This move just helps to bring the two bills, SOPA and PIPA, into their proper, abusive light.

1) SOPA & PIPA never passed into law.
2) Taking down a pirating website shows that the bills are abusive?

Albatross wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:

Sonophos wrote:I still can't see how digital distribution costs can come anywhere close to physical media.

Back office functions exist in both models; Labour costs are lower as you don't need as many staff; transaction costs exist in all commerce by nature.

Data centres aren't free but the unit cost of running them is far lower than running production lines, warehouses, distribution networks and shops; all with their attendant staffing costs.

I work in the European HQ of the lead division of a very large international corporation which has deep involvement in media such as film, music and video games.

I can't give you precise figures due to commercial confidentiality but the raw cost of putting a physical disc on a shelf is not much more than the raw cost of putting a disc worth of data on someone's hard drive.

In either case, the cost of creating and promoting the product vastly outweighs the distribution costs.

While I agree with you, I would add that it's a matter of scale - for an act like us, without a large record company (with a commensurate distribution/manufacturing network) behind us, the costs of physical production and distribution far outweigh the costs of producing the content. This makes digital distribution the only viable option. It's also meant that we were able to reach far more people than would otherwise have been the case - we would have found it very difficult to sell physical CDs in the USA, Canada, Australia, Russia and China etc. for example.

Yes, it is definitely a matter of scale. It is the economies of scale that make it possible to put discs into shops all over Europe.

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.

I'm serious.

Economies of scale make it possible for a large corporation to do stuff that small companies and individuals can't.

For instance, we can print and ship millions of discs a month from our own plants. Once your production reaches that volume the capital equipment cost of printing machinery is spread across so many units that it drops to a small fraction of the retail price per disc.

It's the same principle as GW making models in plastic rather than metal or resin.

biccat wrote:

juraigamer wrote:This move just helps to bring the two bills, SOPA and PIPA, into their proper, abusive light.

1) SOPA & PIPA never passed into law.
2) Taking down a pirating website shows that the bills are abusive?

1 Never said they were, or should, be passed into law

2 megaupload a pirating website? Last I checked they were a file hosting service. What people upload is the issue.

The same thing happens here on dakka, other forums, and whole of the internet. I could upload my codexes to dakka dakka and make it a pirating website, should that cause dakka to be taken down too? What happens if I email a codex to a friend, should my e-mail provider be shut down? Should we close down army builder programs since they reduce the need for a codex? What about re-casters on ebay, should we just shut down ebay to fix that problem?

There is no way to win against pirates anyway. All this nonsense does is inconvenience normal people. If there were actual shady dealings going on, then investigate it. megaupload removed files all the time, in fact when the "leaked" rules for 6th edition 40k showed up, those got removed from megaupload pretty quickly. There was no need to shut down such a massive file host.

Kilkrazy wrote:I'm serious.

Economies of scale make it possible for a large corporation to do stuff that small companies and individuals can't.

For instance, we can print and ship millions of discs a month from our own plants. Once your production reaches that volume the capital equipment cost of printing machinery is spread across so many units that it drops to a small fraction of the retail price per disc.

I know, yeah. I just couldn't gauge your tone and you have a weird sense of humour. Sorry for the confusion.

Who uses Upload sites anymore?

Cool kids use private torrent sites. Good luck tracking all of those MPAA.

but the digital merchandise is perceived by users as being less valuable and therefore commands a lower price than physical media.

I disagree. The average CD price hovered around $15 for quite some time. On average most CD's contained 10 to 15 songs giving an average price of $1 to $1.50 per song. Now I can buy songs individually over the internet. Well guess what, I'm still willing to pay you what I paid per song before. $1 to a $1.50, the problem that record companies have is they can no longer hold the good songs hostage with a dozen bad ones and make me pay for all of it. I'm only willing to pay for the good content which severly reduces the money they're going to make off me, because I am no longer forced to buy crap music just to get the good stuff.

Again, the problem isn't the market, it's a business model that no longer works.

juraigamer wrote:1 Never said they were, or should, be passed into law

So how does this case make SOPA and/or PIPA "abusive"? Assuming, arguendo, that this case shows abuse of the law, how do you lump SOPA & PIPA into the mix? Shouldn't the comment be that the law is already abusive?

juraigamer wrote:2 megaupload a pirating website? Last I checked they were a file hosting service. What people upload is the issue.

Yes, they're a pirating website.

juraigamer wrote:The same thing happens here on dakka, other forums, and whole of the internet. I could upload my codexes to dakka dakka and make it a pirating website, should that cause dakka to be taken down too? What happens if I email a codex to a friend, should my e-mail provider be shut down? Should we close down army builder programs since they reduce the need for a codex? What about re-casters on ebay, should we just shut down ebay to fix that problem?

No you couldn't; no it wouldn't; that's up to GW; no, ebay polices itself pretty well.

If you're going to just open a website for everyone to use you need to exercise some level of control.