Lyndahere (@lyndahere) this morning tweeted
her 5666 tweet on Twitter. The majority of them being to Alan Doyle and
Great Big Sea. 5666 was a Retweet of Alan Doyle’s viewing details
of the documentary Boy on Bridge off his Twitter page. Alan Doyle
wrote “Hey all. I should have some news about upcoming
chances to see Boy on Bridge Documentary Film. Keep you posted.” Lyndahere and her friend Christinatownie will be there
with recording facilities to pirate the documentary and load it up on
to her Youtube site before the credits have rolled or if at a special
screening bootlegged.
Lyndahere wrote to @alanthomasdoyle “Wonderful news, Alan. Finally – after a long wait. We shall to ensure that @christinatownie has/gets Movie Network”. On the previous tweet @lyndahere wrote “If it was unkind, it doesn’t matter – if it’s also true – that’s not good enough. It was unkind. Add capitulated to chastened”. I had to look those words up but yes her actions of pirating and bootlegging are massively unkind. The means doesn’t justify the end.
Lyndahere wrote to @alanthomasdoyle “Wonderful news, Alan. Finally – after a long wait. We shall to ensure that @christinatownie has/gets Movie Network”. On the previous tweet @lyndahere wrote “If it was unkind, it doesn’t matter – if it’s also true – that’s not good enough. It was unkind. Add capitulated to chastened”. I had to look those words up but yes her actions of pirating and bootlegging are massively unkind. The means doesn’t justify the end.
The following
article was from Torrent Freak, a wonderful site for discussing issues
about the impact of music piracy on music. It is particularly
relevant to Lyndahere when it discusses the cannibalisation of music
sales and music videos which her bootlegging and music piracy does.
I found this interesting definition of cannibalism in relation to sales of any product. "In marketing, situation where the sales of a new (introduced as an extension of an established brand) or differently branded product eat into the sales of other products within the same line. If the total sales revenue of that product line increases, then the line extension is justifiable. However the danger of weakening the main brand remains" from http://www.businessdictionary.com.
I found this interesting definition of cannibalism in relation to sales of any product. "In marketing, situation where the sales of a new (introduced as an extension of an established brand) or differently branded product eat into the sales of other products within the same line. If the total sales revenue of that product line increases, then the line extension is justifiable. However the danger of weakening the main brand remains" from http://www.businessdictionary.com.
“Is Youtube killing music piracy” uploaded on June 11 2011. (no copyright infringement intended).
For years the top
record label executives have been claiming that it’s impossible to
compete with free, but YouTube is proving them wrong. With billions
of views every month the major record labels are making millions by
sharing their music for free. For many people YouTube takes away the
incentive to ‘pirate,’ but at the same time it may also
cannibalise legal music sales.
The music industry has
witnessed some dramatic changes in recent years, even when piracy is
left out of the picture. In just a decade the Internet and the MP3
revolution have redefined people’s music consumption habits.
We’ve previously documented how people moved from buying albums to buying singles. But there’s
another big change that occurred, one that may have an even bigger
impact on the music industry as a whole; YouTube and other ‘free’
music sources.
If we go back in time 5
or 6 years, people had only one option if they wanted to listen to
their favorite artists online without paying for the pleasure. That
one option was piracy. Today the public has a wide variety of legal
options, and the medium of choice for most people appears to be
YouTube.
Although true music
aficionados are hard to please, the majority of the public
appreciates the option of listening to their favorite tunes for free
on YouTube. Google is not complaining either, as music videos are a
substantial revenue source for them.
But what about the
record labels, are they happy too? This is not an easy question to
answer, but we’re going to give it a try.
Revenue wise YouTube
and Vevo have be come a serious revenue source. The major labels
haven’t been very open about their revenue sharing deal, but EMI
Music chief financial officer Paul Kahn said during the LimeWire trial that his label gets half a penny for each
YouTube play.
Half a penny may not
sound much, but with billions of views it adds up quickly.
If we look at David
Guetta, one of EMI’s top artists, we see that his YouTube uploads
were viewed 308,000,000 times over the past 12 months. That means
$1,540,000 in revenue, for only one artist.
Just as a comparison, Guetta and EMI have to sell more than 2 million singles to earn that much from ‘paid’ music.
Just as a comparison, Guetta and EMI have to sell more than 2 million singles to earn that much from ‘paid’ music.
In their latest report
music industry group IFPI write that at the end of last year the major record labels were getting 1.7
billion views a month, and this number is rising rapidly. In the last
12 months alone Universal Music tripled the number of YouTube views
from 2.3 billion May last year to nearly 7 billion today.
Staggering numbers that
bring in tens of millions of dollars at least, with free music.
In part YouTube’s
success goes at the expense of music piracy. With free music on
YouTube a large group of people have less incentive to pirate, and
indeed, the number of people who share music on BitTorrent appears to
be slowing because of these and other alternatives.
This doesn’t mean
that music sharing BitTorrent communities are fading away, but the
more casual downloaders have found an alternative in YouTube and
other streaming services.
That’s great news for
the labels right? Well not so fast.
All those billions of views on YouTube each month may have slowed piracy down, but if we have to follow the logic of the music industry then actual sales of recorded music would also be affected.
After all, for years they’ve claimed that “free music” on pirate sites caused billions in losses. Free music on YouTube should have a similar effect.
All those billions of views on YouTube each month may have slowed piracy down, but if we have to follow the logic of the music industry then actual sales of recorded music would also be affected.
After all, for years they’ve claimed that “free music” on pirate sites caused billions in losses. Free music on YouTube should have a similar effect.
The big question is of
course whether the revenue from YouTube can match these alleged
losses or not. Not an easy question to answer, but these are crucial
factors that define how the major record labels will fare in the
coming years, probably even more so than piracy.
TorrentFreak asked both
the RIAA and BPI to share their thoughts on how YouTube could affect
music sales, but both unfortunately withheld their comments.
This leaves us with the conclusion that, unlike many record label execs have argued in the past, you can compete with free. You can even compete with piracy. Whether the net result is going to be a positive one has yet to be seen, but YouTube is taking up a larger chunk of the record label revenues each year.
This leaves us with the conclusion that, unlike many record label execs have argued in the past, you can compete with free. You can even compete with piracy. Whether the net result is going to be a positive one has yet to be seen, but YouTube is taking up a larger chunk of the record label revenues each year.
