http://www.lala.com/

This is interesting. It's a site that allows you to trade your old CDs with other members. They're not direct trades. You list CDs you have and CDs you want. The system tells you when it wants you to ship a CD to another member (via packaging that they provide). You are notified when you have a CD coming your way.

When you are shipped a CD, you're charged $1 for the CD and $0.49 for shipping. Also:

Quote:[...] artists should make a lot more from each CD. 'la la' is taking the unprecedented action of giving artists 20% of our revenues from used CDs, no used record store or online site does this today.

How many CDs you receive is based on "karma" (which is calculated based on the CDs you ship, whether they're in good condition, whether you include liner notes, etc)

It's legal, and they contribute to artists. Will the recording industry try to kill this? And, how?

What an awesome concept!

JP, have you participated in this program?

Interesting idea. the RIAA should hate it, as per their usual MO.

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That does sound pretty cool. But the RIAA will go after them. It's not really about the artist, you know.

Yes, I just got started.

I got my first CD yesterday and another is on its way. I also just got my starter kit yesterday and am shipping 3 CDs out today.

They're CDs I would have sold on Half.com if I could have gotten anything for them. This is more interesting anyhow.

-JP

My page:
http://lala.com/frontend/action/karma?us...0688@10603

BTW - just because you have a CD listed in your "have" area doesn't mean you have to part with it. You get to decide. However you don't know which of your "want" CDs are going to get shipped to you at any given time.

I'll have to poke around in my CD collection sometime this week and see what I wouldn't mind parting with.

I'm out of storage room anyway.

Hey, this looks REALLY cool! Thank you for sharing, JP!

Here's me:

http://www.lala.com/frontend/action/karm...2706@10824

My "have" list is going to have to wait until I can get to the basement. I'll do the ones I can remember... we can list our entire collection, right?

And here would be my (very short) page:

http://www.lala.com/frontend/action/karm...5618@10826

JP, I may get that Memory of Trees from you next week.

There has been a market for used CD's for years--both in retail stores and in sites such as Half.com or Amazon. Recording artists don't make any royalties from the sale of used CD's or traded (directly or indirectly) CD's, so I don't see why this would be any more controversial than half.com sales.

Sites like PaperbackSwap and thebookcart have been using a similar system for book trades. Authors receive royalties on the sales of new books, too, and receive no royalties from recycling old books by sale or trade.

The only difference, I suppose, is the possibility that the person who trades the CD might have burned a copy of the original CD before mailing it out, or might have saved those tracks he wanted to keep to an MP3 player. Book traders almost never photocopy a book before trading or selling it.

Interesting. According to the site owner, Bill Nguyen:

Quote:I'll be the first to advocate that artists should make a lot more from each CD. 'la la' is taking the unprecedented action of giving artists 20% of our revenues from used CDs, no used record store or online site does this today.

So actually the recording artists are doing better if their CD's are being traded on LaLa than if they are purchased on Half.com

Nguyen also asks people shipping CD's to remove the songs from the CD from their Ipods or PC's before shipping, because it's not fair for them to keep the song if they are shipping the purchased CD they copied it from.

I'm going to liquidate our dups. G and I had a lot of CDs in common, but it's never been worth it to sell them.

The RIAA did make at least one statement that they were reviewing the matter, but the tone I got was that they were going to go for shutting it down.

You see, the artist typically doesn't own the music. The music label (sometimes a joint venture between artist and music company, sometimes not) owns the music. The RIAA, of course, is the trade industry group. My feeling is they will not let any site stand that cuts the owner of the music out of the loop.

As JP points out, there have literally been dozens of well-known CD swap sites in the last decade. My favorite was swapit.com. They sent me a T-shirt with the funniest saying "Trade Men Without Hats for Barenaked Ladies". Their problem was getting enough traction because the web was still too new for most folks. I guess this was around 1998.

Anyway, at an individual store level, music has been exchanged for at least 40 years, going back to the record co-ops that opened in the 1960s. The difference, of course, is that the internet gives the business venture global scale, almost no start-up cost or barrier to entry and no investment beyond the web site. They're supervising music swaps and taking a cut of each. Their brilliance was sending money to the artist. What they should be doing is paying the owner. And to do that properly, they would need music label cooperation, which they ain't gonna get because the label wants you to buy the music new.

Trade fast. RIAA isn't going to let them stay open too long.

I wonder what legal angle they'll take, not that I have much knowledge there. Does the owner have any rights to the physical CD? I expect it's the same as arguments against the udes CD market, except this is more alarming to them because of the possible ability to scale and the availability.

I think the money thrown to the artists is just a philosophical thing -- supporting music and not ownership of music. And a marketing gimmick, of course.

Up to 8 trades now.

I think the owner has a license to use the physical CD for private use. Once the physical CD is gone, your license is gone.

I remember Microsoft clamping hard on used MS software on eBay because they just knew that people weren't deleting the stuff. That's how Product Activation got to be such a pain. And before anyone flames me, Intuit posted horrendous numbers one year showing that the number of tax returns filed with Turbo Tax exceeded the number of units sold by 2 or 3 times. I don't recall the exact number, but it would have been enough to make any Intuit stockholder (which probably includes some of you in your mutual funds) scream.

I agree with you, JP. I think throwing the money to the artist is a diversion at best. And besides, the owner of the music is due the money.

A similar sounding site that I'm reallly intrigued by for writers and artists is http://www.lulu.com. The writing part is especially interesting because for $149, you can get your ISBN, get listed in Books in Print, end up in the Amazon feeds, etc. And it's all POD (print on demand) so while the cost of goods sold is high, there is no publishing company to take a healthy chunk. Same applies to music.

They're privately held so I'm having a hard time getting a handle on their numbers. Just read about them in Business 2.0. If I recall the numbers they quoted (which don't hold weight with me until I see financial statements), they brought in $1 million in revenue last year and project $12 this year. I have no idea of their debt load or licensing fees or how they amortized all that equipment. I'm thinking that if they outsource the royalties to someone like Ceridian or ADT, they could make the orgnaization's footprint pretty small.

Yes - I agree. I can't legally keep any copies of these CDs I'm sending out. The license goes wiht the CD. Is that what you're saying? Or are you saying that the license is disolved and not transferrable at all?

If that's the case, then all of used CD sales are in trouble.

-JP

The first one. License goes with the CD you re-sell. That's how the record (and later CD) exchanges were able to survive without getting cease and desist letters. They had the physical copy. Sure, someone could dub a copy, but that wasn't an issue until CD burners came at the bottom of a Cracker-Jack box. Now, of course, you can make copies of CDs all day long and share them with all your friends. It's illegal and all, but if I were the music companies, I would be panicking too. The only control I had over my product in good condition was the physical product. Now that's gone.

Quote:A similar sounding site that I'm reallly intrigued by for writers and artists is http://www.lulu.com. The writing part is especially interesting because for $149, you can get your ISBN, get listed in Books in Print, end up in the Amazon feeds, etc. And it's all POD (print on demand) so while the cost of goods sold is high, there is no publishing company to take a healthy chunk.

That site smells of a rip off. For the same $ you can get your own ISBN account which inlcludes unlimited ISBNS of self published books, both in print and on line, right form the source. Then listing on Amazon, BAMM, etc is also easy to do yourself, and once you have an ISBN, you can also get listed in the trade sites and publications on your own as well.

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I don't disagree. Two differences. One, most people don't know how or don't want to hassle with forms. Two, most people don't understand the docutech process.

I have to respectfully disagree. I don't think it's anymore of a rip off than any other convenience charge.

What I find remarkable besides the fact that it has one of the better entrepreneurs of our generation behind it is that the traditional media has been so complimentary. It's not a vanity press. It's print-on-demand, which we were doing fifteen years ago, sure, but the web makes the world a lot easier.

There actually are no charges beyond the royalty should you choose to go it alone. But just like I can but won't file my own trademark and other IP paperwork, it's a nice convenience.

Then again, I'm the guy who bought Amazon Prime.

Joubert Wrote:It's illegal and all, but if I were the music companies, I would be panicking too.

Has there ever been a case where a business model just became obsolete because there was no way to enforce the legal protection of it, and an industry had to radically change direction?

What if the recording industry is just plain not compatible with today's technology? What if we're left with a much smaller recording industry and a performance industry takes its place?

I'm not talking about law or what is ethical. I'm wondering what is practical. Does the recording industry think of ways to sustain itself in its current form? Of course it wants to perpetuate itself. But I think it is going to need much more strict laws.

Is it just postponing the inevitable?
Obviously, much more invested people than I are asking these questions.

BTW - when I say "I'm not talking about the law or what is ethical" I'm not saying I encourage unethical behavior or condone illegal behavior. I'm thinking that successful business deals with practical realities rather than hand-wringing, except in the case that it can exert political power to get laws changed. But eventually practical concerns come to the fore.

drmomentum Wrote:Has there ever been a case where a business model just became obsolete because there was no way to enforce the legal protection of it, and an industry had to radically change direction?

I guess any of the firms that developed a product and lost their patent protection and didn't diversify that might count, but I suspect you're thinking of more organic reasons.

Deregulation shakes things up too, but again, is a legal maneuver.

From a technology standpoint, the one thing that leaps to mind is telecom. VOIP can crush all of the Bells because services like Skype and IRC give away a follow-along number and cuts the telco totally out of the loop.

Pirate radio has tried to do the same, but government interference in assigning that part of the spectrum (not saying it's good or bad, just saying it is interference with the marketplace) is doing the same. Then again, I listen to commercial free streaming radio via Itunes. Clear Channel can't like that.

Someone else pick some. It's late, and I'm tired.

I dunno, but I was thinking about it along the lines of traditional film and digital... you're seeing watermarks on copyrighted images, but even those can be removed if you know enough Photoshop.

What you've all just said is one reason why I am surprised to read that users of ITunes and other profit-based music download sites say that you are allowed to make up to 9 copies of the song you download, as long as it is for personal use.

I think it's 5 copies, Fraz.

And, of course, if you don't use iTunes and buy the CD at Wal-Mart, you may burn 5 million copies without anything stopping you.

iTunes at least puts a digital barrier in place.

Good one on the film, Pippa!

BTW, does anyone know if there's an animal like this for software? We've got a lot of kids' software that's no longer used for one reason or another that I'd love to trade like this.

GameStop will take in kid's video games. I think Starland used to, but they may have been bought by GameStop. Or is this educational software?

Software. Mostly educational software, but other odds and ends, too. We don't "do" game systems - I have enough trouble keeping Sean off the computer, I'm not about to fight with a game system, too! :laugh:

I don't know of one. But it sounds like a good idea... do you think there are a lot of folks who would be interested?

Yes. Homeschoolers. Put a free ad on one of their boards or on eBay and see if you can flip 'em that way. There were software exchanges back in the day, but they tended to be when a user group met and physically handed stuff to each other.

How legal is it, George? For instance, Microsoft is of the opinion that their licenses are non-transferrable.

Oh, I would imagine it's not. But I suspect the EULA of most software is that way, and it hasn't stopped sales on eBay. Microsoft does (or did) actively shut auctions for its products that didn't use Product Activation.

If hanging on a limb with Butch and Sundance isn't to your style, you can always donate them to a shelter and take the write-off. Again, to Pippa's point, the items wouldn't be legitimately licensed to whomever used them. I would be willing to pay some of the folks around here to write the press release and file the legal paperwork if a software company cracked down on a donation to a shelter.

I mean, I'm a greedy bastard and all, but that's even beyond me.

LaLa seems to still be going strong. I've traded a ton of CDs.

By choosing to fight rather than innovate, the RIAA is failing miserably in its effort to control the future of music.

-JP

And a ton more sites have sprung up that do much the same thing. Some even without the cost... SwitchPlanet and PlayInterchange are two I can think of off the top of my head.

Lala has transformed itself at least once since this thread was current, and now they've been bought by Apple.

Lala execs are now in charge of parts of iTunes, and iTunes may become a web-based service.

Wild ride for Lala.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/1...mpaign=rss