January 29th, 2008
How Do ISP’s Make Money from Music?
By Jimmy Daniels of The Grid Live
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews
I just finished reading this article from Reuters that talked about U2’s manager taking ISP’s to task for not ending illegal music downloads and protecting the musicians, i.e., his cash cow. He goes on to say that the government helped the ISP’s create a “thieves’ charter” and that the ISP’s need to share some of the money they are making from music. How are they making money from illegal music downloads?
To great applause from the audience of music managers, McGuinness insisted that disconnection enforcement would work. “I call on ISPs to do two things. First, protect the music, and second, to make a genuine effort to share the enormous revenues. They should share their ingenuity as well as the money. We must shame them. Their snouts have been at our trough for too long.”
Later, musician Peter Gabriel added his support, agreeing that a lot of money is being made out of music by ISPs. He expressed concern, though, about blanket deals. Source: Reuters
We Say: I know the ISP’s can charge more money for people to get/use more bandwidth, etc, but exactly how do they make money from illegal music downloads? He’s just a moron right, or am I missing something?
Robert Johnson says:
Oh, boo-hoo, I’ll only be able to buy FIVE Lear jets next year. And how will I EVER pay for my next detox?
(Insert deep, portentuous grinding noises as The New Rome begins to collapse from its own willful stupidity.)
January 29th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Jim Frost says:
He’s probably under the mistaken impression that the more data you use the more money they make. That hasn’t been the case for years. These days they make more money if they can keep you from using the product (hence Comcast interrupting BitTorrent users).
It’s clear that he’s thinking in a self-centered way, but he’s got a point in that the only way content monitoring could possibly work is at the ISP level. But practically speaking this is at best difficult, and legally speaking the ISPs really do not want to be charged with doing this. As soon as they moderate content they take on huge liability. Nobody wants that, not when the moderation technology is of necessity imperfect.
I feel for their loss of market, but that’s what happens with disruptive techologies. If it’s cheap for consumers to copy amongst themselves, it should be cheaper for a large entity to supply those consumers — and in so doing skim profit, especially if the experience can be improved over what P2P offers (which, frankly, doesn’t take much).
Apple showed you can make tons of money through music downloads even when you’re competing against P2P. It’s easy, it’s legal, you know the quality is good, and it’s not expensive. To me that’s an object lesson the labels and artists should really take to heart.
They will, eventually, but a bunch of stuff will have to burn down first.
jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com
January 29th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
John says:
These knuckleheads have charge far too much for their product for too long. I remember, vividly, in the 80s when we were *promised* the cost of CDs would come down. Not only did they not come down, they managed to find a way to charge us AGAIN for the same music because they went back and ‘remastered’ it. We should sue them for putting out a faulty/inferior product at the start. F-them. I have zero sympathy for them. The business model has changed - adapt or die! Just because rockstars were rich in the past, doesn’t mean they will be tomorrow.
January 29th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
joe says:
sadly the rise of new music will always be controled by big companies,and the fault lies with the public!
People only accept new music when it comes to them via an official channel ie TV radio the music press,and these mediums are still in the pockets
of the major labels.OK once a band has broken via these mediums they can then go on to exploit their fame without record company help.Yippee!
However as for new bands who
dont get major backing to break them the song will sadly remain the same.People no matter how far out,trendy or radical they appear will only accept what Big brother & Sister tell them to! And that is the real downer!
March 13th, 2008 at 7:51 am