on the subject of fundraising for projects

[DSOP]

There's no such thing as difficult to copy when at the end of the day the rightful owner has to be able decode the media.

Try scanning U.S. currency into Photoshop.

If all manufacturers of recording devices, sound cards, CD duplicators, audio editing software etc. were forced to be in compliance, copying digital to digital could be reduced or even eliminated. Copying analog to digital could be reduced by adding inaudible content that would force the thief (copier) to jump through more hoops and result in less fidelity.

I think it's all pointless though. If the music is great, and sold at the right price, enough people will buy it. I think the right price is way lower than what is currently demanded. iTunes needs to wake up and give a bigger cut to artists, and artists need to start selling songs for 25 cents, and albums for $4.99.

[Lucas Ives]

There's no such thing as difficult to copy when at the end of the day the rightful owner has to be able decode the media.

Try scanning U.S. currency into Photoshop.

I'm not saying it's impossible to put some sort of a block in place. But I can also write you a diff in a couple of hours with which you can patch your PS binary. Or you can just use GIMP.

But apples and oranges, I think? Most of the incentives that prevent people from copying cash have little to do with Photoshop and more with the fact that at some point, you need to pass that fake thing off as real to a 3rd party who may not be on board with your activities.

In my post I was thinking more about media, audio and video, whose endgame is being played in private spaces for all intents and purposes unregulated by bodies who take an active interest in whether or not you're doing something illegal. (Holy runon sentence, Batman.)

As for forcing all audio software/hardware makers to be in compliance, that may be possible at the level of the corporation, but never at the level of the community. It's always going to be hacked.

I completely agree with your point about pricing, though. The best policy always seems to come from treating humans as fundamentally economical mod some irrationality.

[cjbdrm]

I don't think you will ever stop pirating but it can be reduced to a degree...mostly by making the products more affordable but also making it more difficult to copy...

There's no such thing as difficult to copy when at the end of the day the rightful owner has to be able decode the media.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_hole

Again, as soon as I have the bits, encrypted or not, it's game over. MacroVision, Content Scrambling System, mp4/DRM, the road is littered with failed attempts to do this.

I have a few ideas for the latter- maybe they've been thought of before, maybe not...For instance, how about a unique identifier on each physical DVD? As opposed to multiple copies of the same DVD. Require personal information from each buyer...if one gets copied you can trace it back to the source. The threat of accountability may serve as a deterrent. I'm sure this has been thought of before- but it's something I would personally do for a small-scale project.

Digital watermarking has been tried before with films -- each print was given a unique set of red dots, kind of like braille, that would flash periodically during the movie. The MPAA hoped to use them to trace pirated copies back to the distribution source. This didn't work, and ended up just being annoying to theater goers.

Anyway, if people/industry started doing this it's trivial to strip the information.

I also would put out false torrent copies of the DVD to frustrate piraters...possibly with maliciious software- LOL

Not sure you're serious, but in any case: the crowd-sourced nature of sites like TPB would mean that the fakes would be weeded out pretty quickly. Madonna tried this with mp3s back in the Napster days.

There is no technological solution, the arms race will always be won by the pirates. What you need to exploit is people, and the fact that most are willing to pay for something if they feel it's being made available at a fair price, and the creator is the one being compensated.

Well, the idea is to make it inconvenient and not that easy to duplicate to normal people.

You hacker/geek types will always "win", if that's your point.

Whose side are you on, anyway?

[Lucas Ives]

Not my point.

If it were just us nerds and geeks, the MPAA and RIAA wouldn't be sweating bullets.

As for whose side I'm on, that makes me chuckle -- but I guess you have no way of knowing. I made movies for Hollywood for a lot of years and I make music now. I'm on the side of the artist.

But I'm a realist.

[Odd-Arne Oseberg]

Copying has always been going on. Most of my early music was on cassette tapes that had mostly copies from friends` LPs. I bought some tapes in stores, but generally way out of my budget and hard to find. Offcourse as I started making money I got some catalogs and ordered some music, but sharing copies with friends has always been normal. I still believe most people want to support an artist they really like.

The real problem today is that digital media, with mp3s being the absolute worst, sounds like ass.

[Josiah]

bands i play for dont have a problem making money by selling CD's, Stickers, Swag, etc at shows.

i guess the question is, how much money are you talking about? $5,000? $10,000? $100,000?

it takes some particular level of popularity before a bands music is being widely distributed via the internet anyway. until they reach that point, it seems the only way to get the music IS to buy it, and after that point, probably doing just fine on ticket sales/show sales


one of the bands i play for sells their CD for $5, and has them printed for $2, 150% profit aint bad. particularly considering its even higher on t-shirts.

[DSOP]

one of the bands i play for sells their CD for $5, and has them printed for $2, 150% profit aint bad.

Were they recorded entirely for free? No one charged for their time? Microphones and equipment were donated or borrowed for free?

A top quality commercial recording, consisting of approx. 12 songs, performed by humans, can cost anywhere between $5,000 and $500,000 (or more) to make, depending on the cost of the talent, producer, studio, etc.

Home grown efforts can be made for next to nothing, and still sound pretty great too, but there's no disputing the different approaches and the pros and cons of each.

Now that it's harder than ever to sell more than a few thousand copies, it makes more sense to do it on the cheap while you build your potential customer base.