Posts by Simon Grigg
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Rob, it's not hard to buy real movies..most malls have legit shops in them and the legit VCD market is massive. But it's fairly hard for someone to justify a real DVD copy at Rp100,000 a copy when the average wage for a working class person is around RP1,000,000 (about US$100 a month) and a meal is around Rp5000..I'm talking domestic market, not tourist or the massive middle class in the big urban centres. But the middle class (some 50m folks BTW) often see value in owning the real thing, as do the kids.
My daughter, who goes to an Indonesian school takes pride in owning the real thing be it music or games and refused to have her Wii chipped to take advantage of the thousands of games you find everywhere.
The biggest market for the pirate dvds are the tourists who buy them by the million. Hell, you can even get them in the bloody departure lounge at the airport!
-
Yeah, I followed Andrew's conference with some interest..he also tweeted it live, which I found fascinating.
I'd love to know how that woman knows. Maybe it's all lost in translation.
It's kinda interesting to reflect large parts of this thread back to the domestic world that surrounds me right now. Here in Indonesia, as it large parts of the world, piracy is a big part of an act's reality and there has long been a adjustment to that...so much so that that there are unofficial charts and it's a big thing to do well in the bootleg chart and big pirate sales add to your live fee and open doors for TV etc. The local music industry is massive and rather healthy despite having lived in a environment which has been dominated by pirated music forever. Legitimate album sales are only a small part. That said they too carry huge kudos. People want to have the real thing simply because it's much cooler. It's simply not cool to own the pirated version if you're a 'fan' and you aspire to a legit copy.
-
but of course they were never intentionally sold as cigarette lookalikes,were they?
Here in Indo, Philip Morris sponsor underage gigs and your $2.50 entry fee includes a free packet of ciggies. Oh, and also run ads everywhere which say Pria Punya Celeria..essentially cigarettes make men strong. The last frontier......
-
Sam F...snap...
-
What is next under threat
next they'll be banning those fake candy ciggies.
-
It's a bit confused and a bit random but someone has done some research and is telling us what we, but seemingly not the labels has worked out, that the people who are downloading are also likely their best customers and (my conclusion but not a hard one to draw) that, thus, suing these people and cutting their connections is likely to be counter productive to their business in the longer term.
Also, this thread is about to slip off the front page and we can't have that, so I thought I'd better post something.
-
Pirate Bay geezers get jail time although it seems largely token.
-
Courtesy of the always well informed Nige Horrocks
The central evil in the universe today is people's obsession with the internet. Or at least, I think so.
-
Actually gradually a lot has changed from the 80's and 90s when you were on the street directly hawking records Simon.
How about in the last 15 minutes when I got off a fairly extensive Skype call talking thru issues and marketing with an act's label and management. Or over the last four years since I released a number one single in NZ. Seriously Rob, don't be so bloody arrogant.
it might look like a myth from the sundeck of a beach front bali apartment, but it's misleading to package the issue like that. Filesharing is an important portion of the picture, but it is not the whole picture.
As above. I would argue that I probably spend more time talking to and have communication with people who are directly involved with the day to day nuts and bolts of the recording industry all over the world now than I have in decades. So please, give me a break. Performance revenues are up, unit sales are up and more records are being made than ever before, all of which say that you can tout impending disaster as much as you like but only for those who refuse to adapt.
My heroes of that period aren't the people who misappropriated their employers money but those that fronted their own, indie indie indie. Brian Wafer, Roger Shepherd, that guy at propeller, ripper, John Doe, michael alexander, sausage records, jayrem, and the multitude of people who did it by themselves.
And yet I can see several names in that list who wouldn't have survived or existed at all if it wasn't for the deep pockets of those you disparage as having "misappropriated their employers money".
In my experience over a 25 year period, up until aprox ten years ago it was indeed possible to recoup cash outlay on a fairly consistent basis, but no one really made any money for their time.
I'm guessing that 90% of the acts who released records in NZ over that period would be keen to know how it was done...you know a $40,000 album (which is very low on the average budget) artwork, promo of $20k, two $10,000 videos (less NZ on Air) , tour support and so on, which would've been a minimum on, say, a Flying Nun release from about 1996. All of which needed to be covered from an album which likely sold around 5-6000 copies (few sold more than that, most sold far less).
The return to the act was about $4 per unit if they're lucky (less deductions), so it would've returned a wacking profit of..well you work it out.
You hoped like hell that Australia or somewhere else offshore would pick it up and offset the shortfall. And more and more they did, but it was still only a few. Or that healthy sync deal.
And before you start throwing figures around, I'm talking about records that people intended to sell to more than a few mates at gigs and in the local indie store.
Why do I do this....................
-
APRA had just signed off its best year ever
As have performing rights bodies around the world, and music publishers are quietly raking it in. Which means the primary form of remuneration for most musicians, aside from live, is healthy.