Poll: Piracy and you?

[Kenai]

I wonder how many people who can tell the difference between FLAC and MP3 would be able to do so under ABX conditions (foobar2000 can do this quite easily at home too, so it would be an interesting challenge I think)

 

[Azagoth]

• Games - I always buy games.
• BluRays/DVDs - Buy the majority but also download a few too, mainly to see if they're worth buying.
• Music - I'd say 75% downloaded to 25% bought legally.

 

[shauncr91]

I'd be interested to know just how much peoples music folders are worth at 30p a track, especially knowing that you can't then sell it on after.

 

[Glaucus]

I have a £300 setup and can hear the difference between FLAC and MP3 at 320Kbps (symbols/bells etc sound like they are being muted slightly). .

Blind test I bet you can't. I certainly can't.
I bet the majority of people can't even with a thousand pound set up. All be it orientated towards surround sound films. Which is what the vast majority of "high end" home systems will be.
Unless you have exceptional hearing or possibly musically trained to a high Standard.

The demand is a very low % it's just the way it is. Doesn't stop you buying cds and ripping them.

 

[lambda]

You can tell. I have a £2k setup though...

Sadly due to my pirate ways, I mostly listen to 190k sound files, rendering my setup unless.

 

[I get around]

I get up on a saturday, go to HMV, look at a few cd's and decide what I want to buy.
Then I go home and download them for free.

Tbh I don't use discs at all any more, got over 600gb's of music on my pc, my vinyl and tape collections take up too much room as it is, if I had all my music on cd's i'd probably need an extra room. If I had a bigger ipod I'd be well in but alas i'm still stuck with a tiny 30gb.

Before I get flamed I'm a student, part time work doesn't really allow me to go out and buy cd's.

 

[Sinny]

I used to do it as a kid, then I got a job, could afford the things I wanted so I didn't need to download anymore.

If I had no job and I didn't have any income then it would be desirable.

Blind test I bet you can't. I certainly can't.
I bet the majority of people can't even with a thousand pound set up. All be it orientated towards surround sound films. Which is what the vast majority of "high end" home systems will be.
Unless you have exceptional hearing or possibly musically trained to a high Standard.

The demand is a very low % it's just the way it is. Doesn't stop you buying cds and ripping them.

the difference would be usually (only where I can tell the difference) is orchestral music, listening to Metallica wouldn't a yield a difference for me but nice pair of earphones does the world of difference between mp3 and Flac with detailed music.

however, most of my music is encoded at 256kbps mp3.

 

[Radiation]

Do you know what would fix a lot of problems? if company's didn't believe in everlasting profits for a piece of data, for instanced, say i make a song, i would be more than happy to make a fair profit from it, so if i say £50000 is fair as a limit on profits, once thats reached i've been paid for my work more than fairly and so it should then essentially become free to everyone, of course if i make a song for personal use and only share with friends and family who i choose and don't wish to make a profit from it, then i can see a good reason it never leaves copyright.

Same with movies but with a much large profit target, some percentage in profits should be reached then it leaves copyright and its free to all, if anyone distributes it they can put a charge on it of course but people can and would just go elsewhere for free, so everyone wins, the content makers and distributors get a fair profit, then it hits that target point and becomes free to all.

The problem is they expect everlasting profits on something that can be copied infinity and for next to no cost, its basically an artificial limit on something that is limitless, im all for fair profits but not greed, this is the problem with business in general.

 

[rypt]

Business 102 only supply that which is financially viable. what percentage of the public want flac and how does that compare to the extra storage and bandwidth costs of multiple versions. How much would it add to the price of a download and how would that affect business

Steam manage with much larger files

 

[Glaucus]

Steam manage with much larger files

And also charges far more for them and only one version. So You haven't got 2000 customers paying for the small file to 1 person paying for the large file.

 

[rypt]

Of things things I've downloaded, they're normally scientific books that aren't stocked at my local library or book store so the only way I can have a flick through before buying is to download a copy. If then I think they're worth buying I do so.

I find scientific books to be a bitch to find compared to say harry potter lol.

True but never the ones I want or heavily edited versions of one, not like WWE can't afford to pay. Add to it that they only release one CD a year of the "in" thing instead of actual quality themes that's why I have this issue.

True, perhaps.
Though, what themes are missing of the good ones?

 

[rypt]

And also charges far more for them and only one version. So You haven't got 2000 customers paying for the small file to 1 person paying for the large file.

Steam pricing is a complex issue though, and many times is a result of the publishers rather than steam the system.
And carrying multiple copies of music is not an issue, it means that you need 1gb per album to store, which is nothing compared to the multi-gb games on steam.

 

[Glaucus]

Steam pricing is a complex issue though, and many times is a result of the publishers rather than steam the system.
And carrying multiple copies of music is not an issue, it means that you need 1gb per album to store, which is nothing compared to the multi-gb games on steam.

and millions of songs compared to thousands of games.

It is not the same. The biggest point is for every 2000 people who buy an mp3 you'll probably have 1 or 2 people who will buy flac. Now where is the money goign to come for the storage and effort. If you increase the price of a flac single to say 1.50 to compensate, who's going to pay that.

It will hopefully happen, but not until flac is supported in most players.

 

[Kenai]

Say an average game is 5GB and £30 on Steam, works out around £6 per GB

A FLAC single is what 40MB? 99p charge based on it being higher quality... you're approaching £25 per GB, the music would be able to operate on a phenomenally larger margin.

edit - to be honest, even as it is, MP3 downloads must be bringing in monster profits.

 

[Glaucus]

Say an average game is 5GB and £30 on Steam, works out around £6 per GB

A FLAC single is what 40MB? 99p charge based on it being higher quality... you're approaching £25 per GB, the music would be able to operate on a phenomenally larger margin.

but again how many buyers will there be. 99% of people will still buy the mp3 format. You also have millions of games to thousands of games. Some songs will be sat eating space with low sales. unlike games, where nearly everyone will have reasonable sales.

 

[Squark]

I've downloaded some music tracks in the past, don't do it now though

 

[Kenai]

The point was more that bandwidth costs surely wouldn't be an issue as even if they only provided FLAC, they could easily make enough to cover it.

 

[rypt]

Say an average game is 5GB and £30 on Steam, works out around £6 per GB

A FLAC single is what 40MB? 99p charge based on it being higher quality... you're approaching £25 per GB, the music would be able to operate on a phenomenally larger margin.

edit - to be honest, even as it is, MP3 downloads must be bringing in monster profits.

A FLAC ALBUM is about 400-500mb
A 320 MP3 of the same thing is 100-150mb
A 192 MP3 is 100mb
A V0 is 80-90mb
(using UFC soundtrack as comparison)

OGG will come it at less in size than MP3 but better quality as well

As I said, you are looking at about 1 GB tops storage PER album, which is usually made up of say 13-15 tracks - so that is what, £10 at least on iTunes?

A Flac single is about 20-30mb vs an MP3 320 which is up to 10mb. (using Kevin Rudolf - Let it Rock as comparison)

 

[bigredshark]

Before I get flamed I'm a student, part time work doesn't really allow me to go out and buy cd's.

So tell me how that makes a difference. I'd actually have far more respect for you if you said you did it because you disapproved of profiteering and exploitative record companies. That's a (debatable) valid complaint whereas you're freely admitting you don't fancy spending your money on music but you still want it and you can get it for free illegally so you will.

 

[bigredshark]

A FLAC ALBUM is about 400-500mb
A 320 MP3 of the same thing is 100-150mb
A 192 MP3 is 100mb
A V0 is 80-90mb
(using UFC soundtrack as comparison)

OGG will come it at less in size than MP3 but better quality as well

As I said, you are looking at about 1 GB tops storage PER album, which is usually made up of say 13-15 tracks - so that is what, £10 at least on iTunes?

A Flac single is about 20-30mb vs an MP3 320 which is up to 10mb. (using Kevin Rudolf - Let it Rock as comparison)

It's simply the multiplication affect though, store all those formats and you have around 900MB, store 320 mp3 and you have 150MB. So no matter how much storage it actually takes, it takes 6 times as much as needed to serve 95% of customers perfectly adequately. As a business, why would you voluntary have that overhead? Why buy 6 times more storage than you need?

The only way is if offering it pays for itself, and it's such a small number of users prepared to pay it so the premium over mp3 will be relatively large.