Study accuses media companies of cooking the books on piracy losses

It's an idealogical war. So many things were "killing music" and yet the industry still exists.

Yawn

You can't kill the music.

You can kill the hangers on, the middle management, the bonuses for execs, the social media managers, the mailing list managers, the brand managers, half the promo team, need I go on?

Surprise, surprise!

> A study by the London School of Economics and Political Science has found that media companies are overstating their losses to piracy

No?!

SURELY YOU JEST!

I'm right with you guys

Next, they'll be saying Hollywood engages in 'creative' accounting!

Hollywood Boom

The music asshats should look at Hollywood. I realize the movies aren't the greatest, but they've really, really improved over the last few years.

Yes, yes, I know it is mostly recycling good stories with glitzy special effects, but they are at least somewhat entertaining and the resurgence of the industry proves it. If you make things people like they will pay for those things. If you aren't willing to cater to your customers you don't deserve to make scads of money.

I was always taught the customer is always wrong, but they have the money. If you want it, you better do what they want.

No shit Sherlock

Of all the industries destined to meet the digital age head on, the music business was perhaps the most spectacularly temperamentally unsuited to take on the challenge, not least because the model they have been lovingly honing for 40 odd years long since stopped being about music at all and became almost entirely about marketing and packaging product. Musicians, engineers, hardware manufacturers and producers can all still be said to be creative, but the bit that is generally meant when talking about the industry, the executives, are creative pretty much only in respect of how they utilise accounting to avoid tax. By dithering about digital distribution for so long, they let "piracy" firmly establish itself without lawful alternative; their rather profitable "demise" is entirely of their own making. That the movie industry should watch the pile up and follow it happily is bewildering.

When the music biz wails about wanting to break knuckles, the people handing them the hammer are of course politicians; a genuinely natural marriage of those who really don't get change in general and anything to do with computers in particular. They also share a contempt for their core constituencies; the music buying public for one, and the politicians natural fear of "the mob" driving their derision for the pesky electorate. If there's one thing politicians do know how to do though, it's wag their fingers a lot while "getting tough with..." and declaring the odd "war on xyz". It plays well with the press, which of course is exactly the intended target audience. And both love nothing better than an economy-expanding obedient cash cow.

There was a time when stuffing the worlds parliaments with lawyers, landed gentry, wealthy investment bankers and lobby fodder probably made sense, but its long, long gone, and if we don't want to end up as The Land Of Missed Opportunities we'd be wise to start picking parties and candidates whose skills and knowledge reflect the 21st century and a world we might want, rather than those unfit to manage even a rerun of the Industrial Revolution.

Where's Our Hero?

I'm waiting for The Great AO to come and debunk this for us.

In non-sarcastic news: Those statements were delightfully well written.

Wrong assumption

The industry's assumption is that every person illegally downloading a product would have bought that product if they hadn't illegally downloaded it. People download a lot of shit they never would have bought. If a man outside a grocery store gives me an apple, the store cannot claim that that is a definite loss on their part. Who's to say I would have bought an apple if I wasn't given one?

The problem has been and will tend to always be a case of the consumer wanting what they want, when they want it and HOW they want it.

If movie studios offer its releases on your cable tv box as a pay per view, you would sit at home in your undies with your beer and cigarette to watch your movie, If you wanted to make a night of it , take the GF out for dinner and a flick. This would offer the product as a service, rather than the antiquated control mechanism of the music industry where a record was a promo tool for live shows, rather than the end product. This has just became more clearer since the conveyor belt of singers on the X Factor who say " this is my LAST chance" , yes maybe the last chance this year, or your last chance on ITV before you flick over to " the voice" the truth is that artists or any kind; take a product they create, be it acting, music or art and sell it to a music company in the belief that they have no other distribution media other than those avenues.

A musician should gig in pubs and bars, yet you hear judges on these music shows say " no ... too much of a cabaret act, or bar singer" but these people WORK ... so whats demeaning in that work. Legendary artists such as the Beatles, or Led Zeplin were not found on Opportunity Knocks , however if they were an artist of today , they would fail believing they had no chance outside the " industry" so is it piracy that is killing the art ... no , its the industry that's loosing control, the art still remains, the artist can still work, can still publicize their craft, they just have to use a little bit of creativity , or just plane go back to hard work gigging. which brings us back to the original statement.. give people what they want, when they want and HOW they want it.

Release a tv show at the same time so people don't pirate it; as they don't want to wait 6 months, give people the option on how they wish to consume that media , rather than through a corporate approved whoremonger outlet (aka cinema). The future is easy to see, it may not be free... but it isn't through its current channels. and finally

Look at the Apple way of business to steal everyone's ideas, change it then sue them for IP, rather than make things that are new. THAT is what the MPAA RIAA type folks are doing , they sue to protect the revenue as they arn't producing marketable products