11 ms·

...and yet music industry revenues are on the up again. If you can't get something legally - because you actually can't, or because you can't afford it, it's a

by iamben 8y ago

...and yet music industry revenues are on the up again. If you can't get something legally - because you actually can't, or because you can't afford it, it's a 'victimless crime' and you desperately want it - you'll pirate it. But I think most people are happy to pay for the convenience of everything. £10 a month for Spotify is a no brainer for me. The problem happens when (label?) greed sinks in again and the streaming services fragment with 'exclusives' on each. At that point, people end up picking one to spend their cash on, and they'll pirate or stream a shitty version on YouTube the songs they can't get on their streaming service. You want to get more people to pay? Licence everything to everything - then the only people that will pirate are the ones that would never pay anyway. And I bet they're a smaller subset than four in ten.

mrweasel 8y ago
Fragmentation is what causing the rise in movie and tv piracy, if I was to guess. For years piracy have been declining in Denmark, this past year is the first time is started to rise again. The same year where Netflix as been losing a ton of content. Fragmentation is a huge problem, and I don’t understand it. Why do you care about managing your own streaming platform. Just licens everything at a price you believe to be fair and let the platforms fight to provide the best experience. As a music, TV or movie studio you’re the only one that sure to make money.
- iamben 8y ago
  "Fragmentation is a huge problem, and I don’t understand it. Why do you care about managing your own streaming platform. Just licens everything at a price you believe to be fair and let the platforms fight to provide the best experience. As a music, TV or movie studio you’re the only one that sure to make money." This would be amazing. Imagine picking your streaming service based on who has the best app / recommendations / social baked in (or whatever you were looking for). But from a friend that works in TV sales - the platforms fight and pay for the exclusives. If it's going to everyone - pass. That money helps film the new stuff. I guess music has an advantage in the respect that it doesn't really work like that - and it's much cheaper to record an album. That's why it's so frustrating when music services fragment.
  - cbm-vic-20 8y ago
    Sounds like a "prisoner's dilemma" situation.
  - dvlsg 8y ago
    Have music services really fragmented yet? I seem to remember some larger artists trying that, but I don't recall it being successful. It's pretty rare that I can find something on Spotify that isn't on Google yet (or vice versa), and even then they usually catch up to each other eventually.
    - rjbwork 8y ago
      It's common for me to find stuff not on spotify, but I'm into some really niche stuff from the 90's and 00's that just didn't have a big following. I'm also into less mainstream stuff and do get good value out of Spotify, and most small/independent content creators are also putting their stuff on Spotify themselves these days, which means the situation shouldn't happen again.
- thecatspaw 8y ago
  > Why do you care about managing your own streaming platform. because voluntarily giving up control over your content to a monopole means you loose leverage. If 90% of all video content is on netflix, they can set the terms, not you. "we're paying half of that or we dont host it". > Just licens everything at a price you believe to be fair They most likely do. But if noone else is willing to pay enough, its only going to be on their own platform.
  - gcb0 8y ago
    I disagree completely. Exclusive content is not to protect against netflix becoming a monopoly. it is for the studio to try to be the monopoly! if your content has a price in the open, streaming platforms can then compete on price/quality to end user. instead, today, they compete 100% on exclusives.
    - wild_preference 8y ago
      I don't understand what you're disagreeing with. > streaming platforms can then compete It seems fragmentation is part of your premise rather than something you're disagreeing about. The post your replied to explained why there's fragmentation: one winner takes it all if you let it.
    - TeMPOraL 8y ago
      Music and movies are not substitute goods. Ignoring piracy, if you have an exclusive on some content, the fans of that content will come to you instead of choosing some other work to consume.
      - Vendan 8y ago
        Movies yeah, but music is totally a substitute good to me. If you aren't on Spotify, I'll listen to something else...
- mbesto 8y ago
  Simple, there's some really screwy economics. Distribution of content is a "near-zero" cost relative to content production. However, the value of content distribution value is much higher than content. Furthermore, the value of the distribution of the content rises exponentially based on the collective set of content. It's basically designed as a winner-take-all environment, so you have a bunch of digital fiefdoms. Or as put by Jim Barksdale on How to Make Money: "you either bundle or unbundle".
  - kbenson 8y ago
    The thing about fiefdoms is that it increases the amount of territory that's close to a border (by making lots of borders), and crime flourishes around borders. I pay for Hulu, HBO Now, and Amazon Prime. I suspect a year or two from now the same (or more) money will get me less content, as even more is segregated into separate streaming platforms. I think I'll end up just trading accounts with people, so they can use mine, and I can use their Disney, Showtime and Youtube TV or something. I'll get more content for the same price. But once I've done that, why not share three ways, and each person can pay for two services instead of three, and I'll get more content than now at less cost? We've finally gotten to a place where people are happy to pay to stream because content is actually available and it's much more convenient, and the rights holders are so greedy they are going to force people back into the mindset that stealing is okay (but this time it's stealing services, not digital content).
- sailfast 8y ago
  I'm not a fan of fragmentation, but you have this reversed. Fragmentation exists because it allows content producers / owners to get every possible benefit out of that content before it is generally available. This happens with books (hardcover vs. paperback), medicines (years before generics are available), video game platforms etc. The producers are merging with content providers precisely because it allows for this maximization of revenue. It's no accident. Apple ruined it by taking 30% of most digital activity on the planet - that's where the money is at scale and you won't see a reversal until those margins start to approach zero. If a content producer wants the most amount of profit for a known good, say a famous band, (meaning they don't need to give it away to get discovered) then you'll make sure to fragment your customers and make the people that want it most "pay" the most. It makes all kinds of sense as a producer, and it happens in every industry. Piracy is consumers saying "this is BS" and stealing the content so they don't have to pay more - because they feel entitled to do so. Sure, "let everything be free" is a wonderful goal culturally and for consumers but the model won't win out for things in extremely high demand.
- nlawalker 8y ago
  Not that long ago, the consensus was that it was the opposite that was causing piracy: bundling. They are the two sides of the same coin, which is that people don't want to pay what the content providers want to charge. Fragmentation wouldn't be a problem if each service was 99 cents a month, and bundling wouldn't be a problem if one big service that had everything charged $10 a month. Netflix showed that the latter is true - people generally don't complain about having to pay for all the content they don't care about on Netflix because they feel that what they do watch is worth at least $10/month.
- Dirlewanger 8y ago
  Yup, we've gone from paying $120/month for an all-in-one cable package, to paying $39/month for a handful of channels, $10/month for this one online streaming service, $15 for the other one, $30 for another set of channels, and eventually we get to the point where we're paying around the same (if not more) than the all-in-one package, but we now have to manage multiple platforms, and we most likely have less content than we had before. Fuck all that noise.
MarHoff 8y ago
The saddest part being that the film industry is even further behind. Some contents are still totally unreachable by any legal offer outside their home country.
rayiner 8y ago
Taking advantage of something someone created on terms different than what they’re willing to offer it to you is not a “victimless crime.” (Just like jumping the turnstile in the subway is not a victimless crime even if there are free seats, or sneaking into a sports stadium.) At the margin it lowers the price everyone is willing to pay for the item. As to music industry revenues--they're basically flat over the last 20 years: https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=9McmTlgO&id=4FFA946CAF1E5956E231B9C6EDBD7BAE1AEAF226&thid=OIP.9McmTlgOBg-jerMtOi-41gHaD9&mediaurl=http%3a%2f%2fwww.digitalmusicnews.com%2fwp-content%2fuploads%2f2017%2f04%2fIFPI_global_full.jpg&exph=504&expw=943&q=music+industry+revenues&simid=608016356439820520&selectedIndex=3&ajaxhist=0 https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=9McmTl.... Which is crazy, because the number of new consumers that can afford their product is through the roof. People treat piracy as a victimless crime because the marginal cost of each item is zero. Imagine extending similar logic to a handbag. If you steal an LV purse you can’t afford, how do you measure damages? The $1,000 marginal cost to physically replicate the purse, or the $10,000 retail price? That basic logic doesn’t change as the marginal cost goes to zero. The moral rationalizations don't really hold water. It's not like the music industry is out there lobbying to prevent competing content. Their whole business model is creating content that's so desirable that they are non-fungible--people won't settle for a slightly different clone. Advances in digital technology have made it so the cost to create content is lower than ever. But people don't want just any superhero movie, want to see Wonder Woman or the Avengers: Infinity War.
- leereeves 8y ago
  The music labels who decide the terms of sale didn't create the music. They're rent seeking corporations who seek to increase their profits in any way possible and bribe politicians to create artificial barriers through which they can create toll gates. And their control is expanding. Older works that should (by historical precedent) be part of the commons remain copyrighted because of endless extensions. Practices that were once legal and common become illegal (like copying tapes vs copying CDs) or technically difficult (like recording music off the radio vs recording music off the Internet). Fighting back and "lowering the price everyone is willing to pay" doesn't sound like a bad thing to me.
jamespo 8y ago
Be interested to see what proportion of those who do this can't afford it or can't get it.
HeadsUpHigh 8y ago
Exactly. I have a spotify subscription and I do buy some albums from bandcamp where I do know that a good portion of the money goes to the artist and not to some useless blood-sucking middle-man. With movies... tell me, where can I buy/stream a movie from the 90s or so that won't cost me 50$ for 2h of fun? With albums I rip them to my computer immediately and just store the CD( or buy digital). Can't do that with movies or shows.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
nkkollaw 8y ago
Amen. They are really an old-school industry that needs to die,and be replaced with independent musicians that release songs on YouTube.
- kardos 8y ago
  If that happens, YouTube will start squeezing the independent musicians and things will be as bad or worse than before
  - nicc 8y ago
    No, it will not. YT doesn't squeeze video creators, so he will not squeeze musicians. Even if YT did, they would be free to move to another platform.
bunderbunder 8y ago
> If you can't get something legally "Can't" is a pretty strong word. If something isn't available for streaming, it is very likely to be available on DVD or Blu-Ray. Even if the media are region-coded, region-free players may be perfectly legal in your jurisdiction.
ksec 8y ago
>...and yet music industry revenues are on the up again. I keep seeing this mentioned, but seriously, it was only in 2015 the revenues bottomed out and started to rise again. And it is not anywhere close to its peak in the 90s in real terms, and less so in terms of % spending. Globally, China's music industry make less than $100M a year. That second largest economy in the world, and its Music revenue is less than half of Thailand. The industry has changed, and in the west Musicians made much more money in their live performance, K-Pops have all their songs on youtube for free. Chinese Pop stars get much more from advertisement deals and other media. Japanese still loves CDs. A lot of people have grown up to consume music which is totally free.
- dmayle 8y ago
  https://cdn.mbw.44bytes.net/files/2018/04/Screen-Shot-2018-04-24-at-13.46.33.jpg https://cdn.mbw.44bytes.net/files/2018/04/Screen-Shot-2018-0... Revenue didn't bottom out. CD revenue is still on the decline, and digital revenue is still on the decline. Ever since the age of the first recording, music has worked on a freemium model. Music was free to listen to via the radio (and ad-supported), which acted as an advertisement and upsell for physical (and later digital) media sales. With the decline of radio and physical media, as well as the democratization of distribution (less hits, revenue spread more evenly), the music industry has been searching for a replacement business model that works. It looks like they've found it in streaming services.
shams93 8y ago
You basically have a major label monopoly over music for most people. The power of the labels has increased with streaming. Streaming favors a tiny collection of already famous artists. What is utterly broken is the system that gave us the insanely great talents like Zappa and Hendrix. Hip hop music has transformed into professional social media trolling. Even artists like Moby are downsizing and selling off their hardware. You have a tiny set of artists like Kanye who effectively own the industry and for the indies its like a $5 a year side income but they spend most of their spare time on it out of pure passion.
ams6110 8y ago
> stream a shitty version on YouTube Is that considered piracy? YouTube quality is fine for most people (i.e. they either don't care, or don't have gear that's good enough to really hear the difference).
- Rjevski 8y ago
  Not piracy, but the revenue the studios get out of Youtube would seem way less than what they'd get out of a paid platform, so they're still loosing out compared to just licensing the content to all paid platforms.
xxs 8y ago
Reminds 2013 David Bowie's "The Next Day" was released... I could not get it anywhere legally in the country I was/lived. I spent more than 4(!) hours trying to find it... the effort ended past 3am; needless to say how.
tajen 8y ago
Or pick none at all, because they should sort their exclusivity problems, meanwhile piracy proves a better service. And also, pay the artist so they get onto the platform, because mine (JJGoldman, quite big in France) doesn’t like online platforms because they don’t pay enough.
drawkbox 8y ago
> License everything to everything Nothing more annoying than false supply limitations on content by service, exclusives, country, various availability windows. This is the digital age, we have little time for entertainment and need our content on demand. I should be able pay and get what I want to listen to or watch without a false supply constraint to create manipulated demand. I get why the content owners do it this way, content is king, it is just majorly annoying. When movies are available on content services I end up not being into the movie at that time, then when I want to watch it the movie is only for purchase. So even with 4 streaming services I end up buying on iTunes or other. For music, Spotify is doing a pretty good job of having almost everything, but still there are albums that you have to go buy or get. The friction is so much less when pirating, just go get what you want, I'd pay for a service I could just get anything anytime with no restrictions, so I end up buying lots of movies especially. Usability and access still favors pirating in many cases which isn't wise for the content industry.

by iamben 8y ago

mrweasel 8y ago

Fragmentation is what causing the rise in movie and tv piracy, if I was to guess. For years piracy have been declining in Denmark, this past year is the first time is started to rise again. The same year where Netflix as been losing a ton of content. Fragmentation is a huge problem, and I don’t understand it. Why do you care about managing your own streaming platform. Just licens everything at a price you believe to be fair and let the platforms fight to provide the best experience. As a music, TV or movie studio you’re the only one that sure to make money.

iamben 8y ago
"Fragmentation is a huge problem, and I don’t understand it. Why do you care about managing your own streaming platform. Just licens everything at a price you believe to be fair and let the platforms fight to provide the best experience. As a music, TV or movie studio you’re the only one that sure to make money." This would be amazing. Imagine picking your streaming service based on who has the best app / recommendations / social baked in (or whatever you were looking for). But from a friend that works in TV sales - the platforms fight and pay for the exclusives. If it's going to everyone - pass. That money helps film the new stuff. I guess music has an advantage in the respect that it doesn't really work like that - and it's much cheaper to record an album. That's why it's so frustrating when music services fragment.
- cbm-vic-20 8y ago
  Sounds like a "prisoner's dilemma" situation.
- dvlsg 8y ago
  Have music services really fragmented yet? I seem to remember some larger artists trying that, but I don't recall it being successful. It's pretty rare that I can find something on Spotify that isn't on Google yet (or vice versa), and even then they usually catch up to each other eventually.
  - rjbwork 8y ago
    It's common for me to find stuff not on spotify, but I'm into some really niche stuff from the 90's and 00's that just didn't have a big following. I'm also into less mainstream stuff and do get good value out of Spotify, and most small/independent content creators are also putting their stuff on Spotify themselves these days, which means the situation shouldn't happen again.
thecatspaw 8y ago
> Why do you care about managing your own streaming platform. because voluntarily giving up control over your content to a monopole means you loose leverage. If 90% of all video content is on netflix, they can set the terms, not you. "we're paying half of that or we dont host it". > Just licens everything at a price you believe to be fair They most likely do. But if noone else is willing to pay enough, its only going to be on their own platform.
- gcb0 8y ago
  I disagree completely. Exclusive content is not to protect against netflix becoming a monopoly. it is for the studio to try to be the monopoly! if your content has a price in the open, streaming platforms can then compete on price/quality to end user. instead, today, they compete 100% on exclusives.
  - wild_preference 8y ago
    I don't understand what you're disagreeing with. > streaming platforms can then compete It seems fragmentation is part of your premise rather than something you're disagreeing about. The post your replied to explained why there's fragmentation: one winner takes it all if you let it.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    Music and movies are not substitute goods. Ignoring piracy, if you have an exclusive on some content, the fans of that content will come to you instead of choosing some other work to consume.
    - Vendan 8y ago
      Movies yeah, but music is totally a substitute good to me. If you aren't on Spotify, I'll listen to something else...
mbesto 8y ago
Simple, there's some really screwy economics. Distribution of content is a "near-zero" cost relative to content production. However, the value of content distribution value is much higher than content. Furthermore, the value of the distribution of the content rises exponentially based on the collective set of content. It's basically designed as a winner-take-all environment, so you have a bunch of digital fiefdoms. Or as put by Jim Barksdale on How to Make Money: "you either bundle or unbundle".
- kbenson 8y ago
  The thing about fiefdoms is that it increases the amount of territory that's close to a border (by making lots of borders), and crime flourishes around borders. I pay for Hulu, HBO Now, and Amazon Prime. I suspect a year or two from now the same (or more) money will get me less content, as even more is segregated into separate streaming platforms. I think I'll end up just trading accounts with people, so they can use mine, and I can use their Disney, Showtime and Youtube TV or something. I'll get more content for the same price. But once I've done that, why not share three ways, and each person can pay for two services instead of three, and I'll get more content than now at less cost? We've finally gotten to a place where people are happy to pay to stream because content is actually available and it's much more convenient, and the rights holders are so greedy they are going to force people back into the mindset that stealing is okay (but this time it's stealing services, not digital content).
sailfast 8y ago
I'm not a fan of fragmentation, but you have this reversed. Fragmentation exists because it allows content producers / owners to get every possible benefit out of that content before it is generally available. This happens with books (hardcover vs. paperback), medicines (years before generics are available), video game platforms etc. The producers are merging with content providers precisely because it allows for this maximization of revenue. It's no accident. Apple ruined it by taking 30% of most digital activity on the planet - that's where the money is at scale and you won't see a reversal until those margins start to approach zero. If a content producer wants the most amount of profit for a known good, say a famous band, (meaning they don't need to give it away to get discovered) then you'll make sure to fragment your customers and make the people that want it most "pay" the most. It makes all kinds of sense as a producer, and it happens in every industry. Piracy is consumers saying "this is BS" and stealing the content so they don't have to pay more - because they feel entitled to do so. Sure, "let everything be free" is a wonderful goal culturally and for consumers but the model won't win out for things in extremely high demand.
nlawalker 8y ago
Not that long ago, the consensus was that it was the opposite that was causing piracy: bundling. They are the two sides of the same coin, which is that people don't want to pay what the content providers want to charge. Fragmentation wouldn't be a problem if each service was 99 cents a month, and bundling wouldn't be a problem if one big service that had everything charged $10 a month. Netflix showed that the latter is true - people generally don't complain about having to pay for all the content they don't care about on Netflix because they feel that what they do watch is worth at least $10/month.
Dirlewanger 8y ago
Yup, we've gone from paying $120/month for an all-in-one cable package, to paying $39/month for a handful of channels, $10/month for this one online streaming service, $15 for the other one, $30 for another set of channels, and eventually we get to the point where we're paying around the same (if not more) than the all-in-one package, but we now have to manage multiple platforms, and we most likely have less content than we had before. Fuck all that noise.

MarHoff 8y ago

The saddest part being that the film industry is even further behind. Some contents are still totally unreachable by any legal offer outside their home country.

rayiner 8y ago

Taking advantage of something someone created on terms different than what they’re willing to offer it to you is not a “victimless crime.” (Just like jumping the turnstile in the subway is not a victimless crime even if there are free seats, or sneaking into a sports stadium.) At the margin it lowers the price everyone is willing to pay for the item. As to music industry revenues--they're basically flat over the last 20 years: https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=9McmTlgO&id=4FFA946CAF1E5956E231B9C6EDBD7BAE1AEAF226&thid=OIP.9McmTlgOBg-jerMtOi-41gHaD9&mediaurl=http%3a%2f%2fwww.digitalmusicnews.com%2fwp-content%2fuploads%2f2017%2f04%2fIFPI_global_full.jpg&exph=504&expw=943&q=music+industry+revenues&simid=608016356439820520&selectedIndex=3&ajaxhist=0 https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=9McmTl.... Which is crazy, because the number of new consumers that can afford their product is through the roof. People treat piracy as a victimless crime because the marginal cost of each item is zero. Imagine extending similar logic to a handbag. If you steal an LV purse you can’t afford, how do you measure damages? The $1,000 marginal cost to physically replicate the purse, or the $10,000 retail price? That basic logic doesn’t change as the marginal cost goes to zero. The moral rationalizations don't really hold water. It's not like the music industry is out there lobbying to prevent competing content. Their whole business model is creating content that's so desirable that they are non-fungible--people won't settle for a slightly different clone. Advances in digital technology have made it so the cost to create content is lower than ever. But people don't want just any superhero movie, want to see Wonder Woman or the Avengers: Infinity War.

leereeves 8y ago
The music labels who decide the terms of sale didn't create the music. They're rent seeking corporations who seek to increase their profits in any way possible and bribe politicians to create artificial barriers through which they can create toll gates. And their control is expanding. Older works that should (by historical precedent) be part of the commons remain copyrighted because of endless extensions. Practices that were once legal and common become illegal (like copying tapes vs copying CDs) or technically difficult (like recording music off the radio vs recording music off the Internet). Fighting back and "lowering the price everyone is willing to pay" doesn't sound like a bad thing to me.

jamespo 8y ago

Be interested to see what proportion of those who do this can't afford it or can't get it.

HeadsUpHigh 8y ago

Exactly. I have a spotify subscription and I do buy some albums from bandcamp where I do know that a good portion of the money goes to the artist and not to some useless blood-sucking middle-man. With movies... tell me, where can I buy/stream a movie from the 90s or so that won't cost me 50$ for 2h of fun? With albums I rip them to my computer immediately and just store the CD( or buy digital). Can't do that with movies or shows.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

nkkollaw 8y ago

Amen. They are really an old-school industry that needs to die,and be replaced with independent musicians that release songs on YouTube.

kardos 8y ago
If that happens, YouTube will start squeezing the independent musicians and things will be as bad or worse than before
- nicc 8y ago
  No, it will not. YT doesn't squeeze video creators, so he will not squeeze musicians. Even if YT did, they would be free to move to another platform.

bunderbunder 8y ago

> If you can't get something legally "Can't" is a pretty strong word. If something isn't available for streaming, it is very likely to be available on DVD or Blu-Ray. Even if the media are region-coded, region-free players may be perfectly legal in your jurisdiction.

ksec 8y ago

>...and yet music industry revenues are on the up again. I keep seeing this mentioned, but seriously, it was only in 2015 the revenues bottomed out and started to rise again. And it is not anywhere close to its peak in the 90s in real terms, and less so in terms of % spending. Globally, China's music industry make less than $100M a year. That second largest economy in the world, and its Music revenue is less than half of Thailand. The industry has changed, and in the west Musicians made much more money in their live performance, K-Pops have all their songs on youtube for free. Chinese Pop stars get much more from advertisement deals and other media. Japanese still loves CDs. A lot of people have grown up to consume music which is totally free.

dmayle 8y ago
https://cdn.mbw.44bytes.net/files/2018/04/Screen-Shot-2018-04-24-at-13.46.33.jpg https://cdn.mbw.44bytes.net/files/2018/04/Screen-Shot-2018-0... Revenue didn't bottom out. CD revenue is still on the decline, and digital revenue is still on the decline. Ever since the age of the first recording, music has worked on a freemium model. Music was free to listen to via the radio (and ad-supported), which acted as an advertisement and upsell for physical (and later digital) media sales. With the decline of radio and physical media, as well as the democratization of distribution (less hits, revenue spread more evenly), the music industry has been searching for a replacement business model that works. It looks like they've found it in streaming services.

shams93 8y ago

You basically have a major label monopoly over music for most people. The power of the labels has increased with streaming. Streaming favors a tiny collection of already famous artists. What is utterly broken is the system that gave us the insanely great talents like Zappa and Hendrix. Hip hop music has transformed into professional social media trolling. Even artists like Moby are downsizing and selling off their hardware. You have a tiny set of artists like Kanye who effectively own the industry and for the indies its like a $5 a year side income but they spend most of their spare time on it out of pure passion.

ams6110 8y ago

> stream a shitty version on YouTube Is that considered piracy? YouTube quality is fine for most people (i.e. they either don't care, or don't have gear that's good enough to really hear the difference).

Rjevski 8y ago
Not piracy, but the revenue the studios get out of Youtube would seem way less than what they'd get out of a paid platform, so they're still loosing out compared to just licensing the content to all paid platforms.

xxs 8y ago

Reminds 2013 David Bowie's "The Next Day" was released... I could not get it anywhere legally in the country I was/lived. I spent more than 4(!) hours trying to find it... the effort ended past 3am; needless to say how.

tajen 8y ago

Or pick none at all, because they should sort their exclusivity problems, meanwhile piracy proves a better service. And also, pay the artist so they get onto the platform, because mine (JJGoldman, quite big in France) doesn’t like online platforms because they don’t pay enough.

drawkbox 8y ago

> License everything to everything Nothing more annoying than false supply limitations on content by service, exclusives, country, various availability windows. This is the digital age, we have little time for entertainment and need our content on demand. I should be able pay and get what I want to listen to or watch without a false supply constraint to create manipulated demand. I get why the content owners do it this way, content is king, it is just majorly annoying. When movies are available on content services I end up not being into the movie at that time, then when I want to watch it the movie is only for purchase. So even with 4 streaming services I end up buying on iTunes or other. For music, Spotify is doing a pretty good job of having almost everything, but still there are albums that you have to go buy or get. The friction is so much less when pirating, just go get what you want, I'd pay for a service I could just get anything anytime with no restrictions, so I end up buying lots of movies especially. Usability and access still favors pirating in many cases which isn't wise for the content industry.