Sunday, February 17, 2008

What would make packaging "special" enough

There is a basic quandry that goes on with regard to downloading.  One the one hand you have people that say the CD is overpriced for what you get.  A simple understanding of economics and inflation shatters that argument because the price has remained unchanged for decades basically.

On the other side is people who think the package should have more features, and that's what this post is about.  What makes it special enough?  We've got digipacks, extended booklets, video segments, "b-sides" (a reference to the obscure vinyl single where songs that didn't make it on the album, sometimes they outshone the single).  Autographs, posters, easter eggs, hidden messages and meanings (One of our releases from Planet P Project called 1931 that talked about WWII Germany used a font that was only ever used on street signs in Berlin at that time, and all the text was at a 31 degree angle for example).

So what makes a package "special enough" for you?  What are you looking for?

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Some new industry news

Couple of very promising stories came out today.  First up:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7240234.stm

Basically the law being seriously considered would be similar to a drunk driving arrest where you loose your license and car and such.  If you get caught, you don't get to have internet any more.  This kind of ties in with the extreme punishment blog that we did.  Even if you had no financial fine at all, how would you feel about loosing any ability to have internet for a year for pirating?  I think this is an excellent step and if it passes, will have a significant impact, especially when the first people get convicted.

In a similar situation, there is talk of legislation in Germany to address companies like Rapidshare that would make them responsible for the content on their service without a complaint having to be made.  Currently a lot of bloggers will password protect their files thinking that Rapidshare is looking at the archives and to keep them out.  If something like this passes, you can bet that Rapidshare, Megaupload and others are going to start enforcing their terms of service a lot more enthusiastically.

Today the Kuwait government just blocked 20 bittorrent sites and they plan to get even more extreme with it.  As rich as Kuwait is, you can hardly use the "I'm poor" excuse for piracy.  Good going Kuwait.

And finally the story of ShareReactor http://torrentfreak.com/sharereactor-admin-guilty-080212/ - of course torrentfreak puts their spin on it, but if you look at the details, this guy has had his life turned upside down for years, had to move from country to country, had to pay a ton of legal bills and ultimately this creates a positive precedent for shutting down hosters and propagators.  Actually I'm curious, what legitimate use is there for systems like Rapidshare?

Monday, February 4, 2008

COPYRIGHTS AND COMMON SENSE

There is lot's of discussions regarding copyrights.

Some people feel that copyrights are a bad thing.

I would say that these people have not bothered to check the whole picture.


What is copyright?

It's rather simple.

An example: If a band creates music they have the copyright for it.

Sometimes the band has their work released by their own label.

They own their music. Then it is common that they work together with a record label who either license the rights and pay for that, or, at times, the record label buy the music. Basically there is these three ways to go. Either the band owns the copyrights or a label owns it. If they license the rights they own it for a limited period. If the bought the music they own it forever - if they do not sell it, or hire it to some other company.

Either way the bands get paid.

That anyone else should claim that they should have the rights to use the music without asking for permission is in no way acceptable.

Copyrights are not a bad thing. It is simply a way for the originator to protect the rights to decide about his/hers own work.

It is common sense.




How can anyone disagree with that?