The downfall of MegaUpload is surrounded by yet another conspiracy theory.
One rumor is now suggesting that authorities had to strike because of possible pressure from the music industry as the service was about to launch a music service called MegaBox that could have enabled artists to give away their music for free and get paid by MegaUpload via secondary revenue that may have been generated by tools such as advertising. Given the size of MegaUpload, at the time of its shutdown the 13th largest website, hosted on more than a thousand servers and more than 1 billion visitors every month, MegaUpload could have been a serious threat in such a venture for the music industry. Keep in mind, this is a rumor, not a confirmed fact.
Even though, the speculation that the music industry was able to convince the FBI to shut down MegaUpload just in time before there may have been an inconvenient iTunes competitor is a spicy exercise. Imagine a service that attracts 50 million users a day and gives away music free of charge, while keeping artists happy. Suddenly you don't need music publishers anymore. Has there been a shady operation in the background? We don't know and I will leave that up to you to decide.
Of course, as it stands, MegaUpload and its sparkling and money-flaunting founder Kim Dotcom (born Kim Schmitz) are accused of mass piracy and there is a good chance that Dotcom won't get away with a slap on his hands as he did when he was convicted of insider trading and embezzlement in 2002 and 2003. Dotcom received a probationary sentence in both cases.
I think you'll find your lines crossed here. Most upcoming artists with anything of note to offer get over looked by the music industry in favor of an ever growing popularity to sign mediocre talent which they can manipulate using auto tune and then continually feed the garbage out to gullible tone deaf people for maximum profit.
That's 85% more what the record labels currently give to the artists. As always the music industry screws the people and the artists
This service would put off alot of people from buying music and publishers will fall. And there will be noone to sign and invest in new bands. Therefore these bands will have to get by on word of mouth alone and gigs. And eventually retire before doing anything big. And then the music industry would be doomed.
Im glad this Megabox was never final, but sadly I think its innevitable for another similar service to appear.
Im glad we are happy to send the navy out to protect ships rather then decide their lives arnt worth spending your tax dollars on
I think you'll find your lines crossed here. Most upcoming artists with anything of note to offer get over looked by the music industry in favor of an ever growing popularity to sign mediocre talent which they can manipulate using auto tune and then continually feed the garbage out to gullible tone deaf people for maximum profit.
and un proven band getting signed is just giving them a debt, and letting them have VERY little leverage.
the best thing a band can do is get a studio recording for their best song, and youtube it, get adds off it and put it up on a distribution platform like itunes, and try to get the word out.
if you can plan your own tours, you can make even more money, and wont be screwed by record companies.
most people wont even break even on their debt with the record companies till their 3rd cd if they are lucky.
RIP. megaupload, fileserve. filesonic.
That's 85% more what the record labels currently give to the artists. As always the music industry screws the people and the artists
I was contemplating the trick of getting an Ebook on to Nook and Kindle just yesterday. Not the devices, I mean the service. Why sell your rights to some company who only puts them in the same distribution as you would? It's not like you need to print an actual book anymore. In the same way, you no longer need to cut a CD. Just record using your high end computer gadgets. Either distribute via YouTube, or some other ad supported service. You'll end up with the same revenue, but keep all your rights.
Artists would get by on popularity and gigs, actual talent and effort instead of hand picking acts based on their image and synthesizing them some talent? Sounds like the best thing that could ever happen to consumers.
Kim Dotcom's really not that great of a guy either though, kind of guilty of money crimes in the past and would probably have taken a lot of people's money. He has a point, this is just as much about the war he's had with the industry as it is any crimes he's committed. I mean, there's plenty of criminals around the world. Plenty of large counterfeiting rings in China, actual ripping off physical products and selling bootlegs. Or they could have went in to grab one of the many drug cartel kingpins in South/Central America. Or perhaps one of the multiple child prostitution rings around the world and even in the US. No? Our biggest priority is a copyright infringer?
Odds are he'll get 10x the sentence most child rapists/murderers do.
Even in worst case scenario with the cost of piracy being as they say (jobs, quality etc. something for the common people that is, because we all know they billionaires are selfless and don't think of their own profit and their third pool or second helicopter) the value I think is in the enjoyment of freedom to use the free internet as it was meant to be, freely.
Can you put a price and value on peace of mind?
Like Steam vs. Sony's rootkits vs. torrenting the unpatched and potentially trojan-ed version?
Technology has come to the point where even a garage band with little financial backing can 'produce' top quality sound; never mind the fact that prob 99.9% of pirated music is MP3 format anyway, something that is not even remotely CD quality; and CD quality is the low end of music production these days.
bottom line, the 'need' for an expensive studio and for a record producer is vanishing and the more acts that find out about it the better. Let's give them a way to self publish; and make a living doing so and before you know it the RIAA can call it a day.
Pay the right people and you get whatever you want. U.S. Capitalism.