Madonna's American Life Download
Madonna's American Life Download
April 19, 2003
Hackers strike back - make Madonna's American Life available on Madonna.com.
Only a few days ago, Madonna insulted her fans saying, "What the f*ck do you think you're doing!" on MP3s that pretend to be Madonna's American Life.
Now Madonna's American Life website has been hacked.
The hackers wrote on Madonna's American Life website, "This is what the f*ck I think I'm doing", and then posted radio airplays and remixes of all 11 tracks.
Ironically, the hackers have done Madonna a favor. If Madonna had succeeded in preventing her fans from sharing American Life on the Internet, she would have doomed her own sales.
The most reliable correlation in the music industry is:
More file-sharing of an album equals greater sales.
Less file-sharing of an album equals lower sales.
File-sharing is like radio airplay on speed. But unlike radio airplay, file-sharing costs the artist nothing in promotional dollars.
UPDATE: Bob71 comments on needing a designed experiment to prove Correlation or Causation. But here Big Media already knows the results of the designed experiment: When they use anti-piracy measures to prevent file-sharing by a particular artist, the sales of that artist go down - not up.
Why do you think they don't use anti-piracy measures more often? The measures have been available for at least 10 years.
Now on Bob71's other point: Do more pics of me prove that I'm hot? Sorry, I don't quite follow :p
But anyway, I'm trying to put up another pic of me today... no correlation though! Actually, the correlation seems the opposite to me: there are very few pics of me that you would like .... I'm not hot, you see. But thanks for being so kind!
- by Aimee Deep at 05:36 PM with 81 comments
Comments
Correlation does not prove causation. The stats on downloading vs. record sales may be a case of post hoc ergo propter hoc, as both may simply be a function of artist popularity. Unfortunately I can't think of a way to prove you right, even though I've long an opinion in line with your airplay comments. Proving you hot, however, is very easy: More pics!
Posted by: Bob71, on April 13, 2003 08:21 AM
The experiment to prove the point is fairly easy:
Take a song/album that has not been released yet
in any format, grab two (large) groops of random
people allow one set to download the music for a
week,and expose both to equal hype. At any point
during the week anyone can buy the CD and listen
to it.
See which group buys more CDs.
(there are problems with making sure no one
involved in the project knows what's being
researched, but the above is the basic outline.)
Posted by: Mike, on April 13, 2003 12:16 PM
Then why if she was trying to prevent users from sharing the album, would MTV.com decide the preview the WHOLE ALBUM on line?
Posted by: Lance, on April 18, 2003 05:18 PM
Whilst I do not really approve of the hack, damn that is amuzing.
Posted by: Perry de Havilland, http://samizdata.net/blog on April 20, 2003 09:05 PM
They did Madonna a favor by posting her music online for people to illegally download for free? Sure fooled me.
The arguement that more file-shared albums sell better just doesn't work. All that means is a more popular record that sells alot will get stolen more online than a less popular song that doesn't sell as well. Online left in no way SPURS record sales. Your kidding yourself if think it does. Madonna has every right to defend her music that was created by many engineers/producers/song writers. Not to mention that when you steal music your also taking the food off the plates of families of other people that work on an album. The record industry is a BUSINESS. It's not just about the music, because if it was, no one could afford to live and still provide it to the public. There has to be a way for all those involved to be compensated for the creation of the art for it to continue.
On my final note, you are not attractive enough, nor have the body to be posing in pictures like the one posted at the top of this page. Please spare us the sight of your ordinary and unappealing figure. Nice chest though.
Posted by: Craig Ciccone, on April 22, 2003 03:54 PM
Craig Ciccone is a wonderful example of how far civil society has decayed in some parts of the English speaking world. There was a time when being regarded as a gentleman was important to many people and to actually highlight the fact that one might be a boorish churl would be odd behaviour indeed.
But people like Craig Ciccone seem to think that witless personal insults and what is tantamount to an admitting of physical inadequacy (clearly myopia and quite possibly other things too) actually makes their arguments more compelling and plausible. How very odd.
I look forward to his next halting maudlin economic insights regarding the fact heartless entrepreneurship and technological advances have fact that "taken the food off the plates of families of other people that work…" on buggy whips, gas lamps and horse troughs.
Posted by: Perry de Havilland, http://samizdata.net/blog on April 23, 2003 08:59 AM
Hahahaha, that's what she gets. But who really buys Madonna anyway?
-Computer Science Major
Posted by: Dan, on April 24, 2003 11:37 PM
Perry, I couldn't agree with you more about Craig. And I couldn't disagree with Craig more about Aimee, who is a stunning young lady by any sane measure. Craig, since you're so quick to make demeaning comments about people, allow me to lower myself to your level in order to make sure you can understand me, and point out that you come across like a complete douchebag. Which probably doesn't concern you in the slightest bit, does it?
Posted by: dan, on April 25, 2003 04:01 PM
Alright, either that's a picture of your adopted daughter, or you've got some body dysmorphic disorder going on girl. Not hot? I don't know how many readers you get, but I bet most of the female ones would sooo like to smack you right now (that is, the ones who didn't already want to smack you.)
As far as Craig, he keyed right in on it like a stray dog. First he barks at you, then he brings you a bone. Probably just codependant instincts from his bad childhood.
To the issue. I don't see piracy so much as stealing food off the plates of hard-working engineers/songwriters/musicians, I see it as stealing the gold fixtures and china off the executive's yachts, and eventually burning those yachts to the waterline.
Many great bands with three or four national hits end up touring seedy little bars at the end of their careers because of these parasitic little scumbags, whose only talent is greed. A band that writes songs reaching hundreds of millions of human souls, if only for a year, should have something to show for it in the end. But most are muscled into unfair contracts at the beginning of their careers by these gilded mafioso, these frauds who accuse the common man of thievery today. Well, let them fiddle.
Anyone see these RIAA lawsuits as a massive waste of money? Stolen money? Where'd all of it come from anyway?
Posted by: grog, on April 25, 2003 11:46 PM
Anyone who creates something, has the absolute right to protect it in any way they see fit. I have to admit that I tried to "steal" a sneak-peak of the AL tracks, but when I got line repeats or M talking, I had to laugh and think to myself, "how smart is that?!". That's Madonna for ya! She knows that, even without filesharing before release dates, she has enough devoted, life-long fans (such as myself) to sell an adequate amount of albums and stay right where she is- and that's on top!! Anyone who is blind to the facts or disagrees with her decisions, really isn't going to stand out against the enormous number of us who support her. So, in short- you can all keep babbling back and forth, trying to sound all intellectual, but in the end you might wish you hadn't wasted your time. Happy arguing :)
~THE ICON LIVES~
Posted by: Maddy, on April 30, 2003 12:20 AM
Madonna's still alive? Huh. Man, am I ever out of touch.
Mr. Madonna (or Craig, whoever) must be hot enough to burn lava. I mean, he must be so sexy it would burn your eyes just to look at him. And the only people he hangs with are all the same way. People that hot don't need to be polite or truthful about the sexual attractiveness of others. God I'm jealous.
Posted by: Sebastian, on May 8, 2003 05:13 PM
Curiously, "American Life" speaks of the absurdity of American Life while according to some posts, Madonna insults those who gave her the loyalty needed to grant her the forum which she enjoys.
The word "Absurd" cannot come close to the absurdness of it all.
Absurdly yours...???????
Posted by: poetic, http://www.geocities.com/poetspetition on June 1, 2003 08:53 PM
I don't think Madonna's album "American Life" failled. We must remember that USA is not the whole world. The album sold well in Europe, South America etc. and debut in #1 in 14 countries, including USA. Besides, Madonna has been 20 years on the pop road and she still an amazing artist. That's what I think.
Posted by: Ross, on July 11, 2003 12:52 PM