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Legal Issues Don't Bother American Downloaders
An anonymous reader writes "Ipsos-Reid has released its latest research on file trading. Bottom line, the great majority of users do not believe they are breaking the law. Only 9% feel there is anything wrong with their actions. With 40 million Americans identified as active file traders this is indeed stirring information, though not surprising. Another stat, 73% of US downloaders report that their motivation for trading was to sample music for later purchase. You can see the charts and original press release here."
After submitting data, participants were rumored to have disappeared. When approached by reporters, Hilary Rosen stepped outside of her Mercedes sedan and emphatically responded, "The result of this survey was entirely unexpected and blatantly anti-American. Like, who would've thought?" Screams emanated from her automobile, but Rosen was quick to assure her interviewers that they were merely products of her favorite Mafia films. Jack Valenti was hesitant to comment.
Do you like German cars?
Democracy will work this out and it won't be illegal anymore.
Does the RIAA + MPAA have? 27 000 000 or what?
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Piracy is a victimless crime, like punching someone in the dark.
Bottom line, the great majority of users do not believe they are breaking the law.
I beg to differ. Its pretty apparent to anyone you talk to that they know they are breaking the law, they just don't care.
OK, most people don't REALLY plan on buying more than one album in 10, 20, 50, 100 that they sample. It's not that they're saying to themselves, "Well I'll listen to this song and the maybe buy the album." No, they say "I want to here some 'X' today." Sometimes 'X' blows them away, and they DO buy the album.
The internet file sharing model isn't 'listen and buy,' it's just 'listen.'
The question we should be asking ourselves is why exactly is this any different from the library?
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
It sounds like you think this is a bad thing. Are you French?
I have downloaded about 30 Gigs of music, all for the articles.
56% of americans said "I get mp3s off kazza but I dont file-share"
I always thought by going IPv6 and having each person their own IP that is traceable, (1.1.1.1.1.1 = bob smith or acme inc.) it would make it easier to trace spammers as well.
Everyone gets really freaky about privacy on the web, and I understand their desire to be private, but I don't see it in the constitution either.
The concept of privacy obviously extends to your home, including your inside your computer, but once you 'leave' your home via the internet, its kinda of silly to expect any more privacy than when in your car to go to the store. This doesn't mean the govt. should track you without a warrant, but you shouldnt expect to remain totally anonymous. Some confuse the right to free speech (which doesn't mean anonymous free speech or exclude it, read the damn constitution, its neutral to that point) with privacy. They are different concepts completely. You seem to get this point. others dont.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Its the human condition, to try to get stuff for free if its easy to steal it.
Take towels in hotels, cutlery or even glasses in bars. People take them knowing full well its illegal.
Why do I need to put my name and adress? You said this was an anonymous survey?
Oh, that's just for ehh ... our computer, eh... so he can list you in alphabetical order, and ehh geographical area... yes, that's it! *Scratches back of head nervously, looks away*
Man, I would'nt want to be your kid. Geez. I would probably want to run off with some homeless preacher for a year just to be away from you.
...are available in this month's issue of "Duh!" magazine.
Let's look at the facts:
-The music industry is actively hostile toward their customers, referring to them as thieves.
-Meanwhile, the music industry was found guilty of price fixing CDs for a DECADE. What must they give their customers as restitution? ALMOST enough money to buy ONE new CD!
Clearly, the only solution is mob justice-- in this case, the mass downloading of music by people who are presumed guilty by the RIAA anyway. Nobody loses sleep over this except the RIAA executives who stuff their mattresses with the cash we've paid for CDs where all but 2 of the tracks are pure shit.
This is not a troll. This is the cold hard truth. The guilty take the truth hard. 'nuff said.
People don't feel bad about getting back at companies that screwed them over for years.
News at eleven.
And by I, I mean, the generally informed geek population at large.
We've all been doing this for quite some time now; Music trading (regardless of whether or not its illegal) doesn't feel like a crime. People _do_ actually use this stuff for the purposes they claim too. I often download mp3 samples of bands and djs before I'm willing to invest in their cds. The RIAA dumps all over this. Record companies should be taking advantage of this instead of trying to put an end to it.
Of course, this is just the same ol' story. The numbers don't lie though: if THAT many people are using music sharing, and in their opinion, legitimately, you're better off tapping it for your own gain, than to try and drive it into the ground, especially because it just isn't gonna happen.
Let's round 'em up and throw them in jail for 5-10, that'd outta fix 'em.
I'm mean if it's illegal, it's got to be bad.
Another stat, 73% of US downloaders report that their motivation for trading was to sample music for later purchase.
Of course, sampling songs for later purchase doesn't necessarily mean you're going to purchase anything. The whole point of sampling is to decide if you want to purchase the album or not. I've learned from prior experience never to buy an album based on any one song, so if I've only heard one song from a band on the radio, there's no way I'll buy the album without hearing more of their music. It's too bad the RIAA wants to take that ability away from me.
For every post, there is an equal and opposite re-post.
73% of US downloaders report that their motivation for trading was to sample music for later purchase
And yet another revealing statistic, 100% of all pr0n addicts lied about their filesharing habits.
IF I could mod you to "+10, absolutely right", I would. You have hit the nail on the head. Most people realize (intuitively) that downloading music/movies/software is (at the very least) a victimless crime in that 99.99% of the stuff that is downloaded and not later bought would never have been bought anyway. I think the remainder is more than made up for by the increased sales due to increased exposure.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Why do people believe laws are absolute? We're not talking about laws of physics here - we're talking about common law. If everyone believes in something (like downloading MP3s for free) the laws should reflect society's wishes. They are the voters, afterall. If a law is not upheld (and there are many) it is because people realize it is a bad law.
In other news:
ok, i'm not sure what i'm getting at (especially with that last one...), but it's something along the lines of "law doesn't equal ethics." you can buy a law, but Leges sine moribus vanae ("Laws without morals are useless.")
Fermat's other theorem: "I have a simple proof, but I can't write it down as I fear it's a DMCA violation to discuss it"
Note thechoice of words. I'd be willing to bet that the majority of people who download mp3's are well aware that what they are doing is illegal, but may not believe in their heart of hearts that it is actually wrong - there's a semantic difference implied at the very least.
In Soviet Rush, today's Tom Sawyer gets high on you.
are you republican?
But, we look at it the same way as going 5-10 MPH over the speed limit while driving - we know that the risk of cops bothering to single any one of us out for a pullover while everyone else is speeding at the same time is slim, so we continue to do it.
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There is a difference between what is illegal and what people believe is wrong. Before the civil war, it was illegal to help a run-away slave, even if you were in the North. Many people worked on the "Underground railroad" anyway and didn't think it was "wrong" to help slaves.
Now a days, the whole concept that you could "own" a person seems pretty strange. But then, some people today also think that the whole concept that you could "own" an idea is pretty strange.
SPF support for most open source mail servers can be found at libspf2.
I think it just goes to exemplify human nature.If you can benifit and get away with it, regardless of the morality, people will. Still up for auction is the issue of if it is truely wrong, but for living in a society of rules, one must obey them, or attempt to get that changed.
You can sue one file trading application after another, but those are just bullets. The smoking gun is human nature.
if the majority is always right, then why is this still illegal? oh wait i forgot, what we think doesn't matter, what the people with the money does. damn, snared again.
IMAGE VERIFICATION IS EVIL!
confirmation of the course of consumer indoctrination the large corporations have been on in the US for 20 years. They wanted mindless consumers, now as they are being eaten alive they discover some slight problems with that business model. I just hope the RIAA doesn't give the consumer public heartburn...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Nope. Bomb them anyway.
Look here. When I bought my first portable radio it had a cassette recorder so I could tape music from the radio. Then I bought a portable CD player that had a cassette recorder in it so I could tape music from the radio or CD. Then I bought I stereo with many components and fancy connections so I could tape from my CD and my FM receiver in high quality sound. Then I bought a VCR so I could record shows, movies and even music. Then I bought a fancier one so I could make even better quality tapes and copies of movies and shows. Now I have a computer and an internet connection, a CD burner and access to even more music than I could get from my radio or FM receiver with a high gain antenna. I can make tapes and CD's of music like I always have to listen in my car or elsewhere. Now you want to tell me I'm a 'pirate', a 'thief' or a 'criminal' for doing what I've always done and I might add-something that the technology has always allowed me to do. I'm surprised that 9 percent of the people think it's wrong now. In better news, 91 percent of the people are not so gullible as to believe something that's always been legal and encouraged is now illegal.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
(a) if it seems moral and ethical (for example, I'm not taking anything that somebody currently owns away from them, and
(b) the laws are complicated, unclear, currently in dispute, and seem to stake out large chunks of "what's fair" as "You Have To Pay For This From Now On" territory, then
(c) people are going to do it, regardless of any attempts by people with lots of cash and hubris to have the laws they want passed by those whose jobs are to write and interpret the law.
Folks are accustomed to being able to listen to copyrighted programs on TV or radio without paying extra. They don't expect to take things from grocery stores without paying. That distinction seems to drive a lot of behavioral choices.
We pay for Linux distros, knowing that we can DL them for free. Why? We're willing to pay people to save us time and effort, and we have the feeling that the prices they ask are reasonable for the time and effort they expend (actually, it feels like we're getting a great deal on the results of their efforts, and Thanks!). We're not willing to pay other people to cost us time and effort with their attempts to own our choices and limit our behavior with predatory laws. That's not what laws are for.
Think, write, think, edit, think...then post.
It prettymuch was popular interest that ended prohibition as well. The book "Drug Crazy" by Mike Gray made that point pretty clear. According to his statistics, heavy drinking (which was a crime) and violent crime rates skyrocketted. Getting rid of prohibition helped the economy (in the hospitality industry) as well as helped decrease the amount of gang activities. Human civilzation has advanced when information and communication became more common. By promoting free access to information, society as a whole ends up benifitting (that is, unless your idea of an ideal world still has outhouses and no deoderant.) What the record and software industries need to understand is that prettymuch no matter how illegal they try to make file sharing, it will still be around. Big brother isn't going to get them out of the quandry they now face. What they really need to focus their efforts on is attempts to proffit off of it, or how they should abandon what they're doing and move into a new industry. When the automobile replaced the horse as the popular form of transportation, the people who sided with the horse-based businesses had only themselves to blame. The masses have spoken, and filesharing is going to be around until it gets replaced by better, more popular and convenient technology. Those who still try to stand on their soap boxes and stop everyone have only themselves to blame when their efforts fail...
"Operating systems suck: you're better off using only the BIOS" --trainsaw.com
No, I'm not. But I'd rather be republican than French
Music should be paid for in terms that both the musician and listener both like. Until then, war's all.
I have been downloading songs from Sister Hazel for a few months. I was told they were pretty good, so I downloaded and agreed. Yesterday I bought their new album, virtually (heard 2 songs)sound unheard (or whatever the audio equivalent of sight unseen is).
The only reason why I bought their album is because of Kazaa.
This year have purchased about 3 cds. My pre file-trading average was about 5-6 a year. I know I will get at least one more when Big Bad Voodoo Daddy releases their next one in April.
So my quantitative purchasing habits have not really changed, but my satisfaction with purchases have increased tremendously. My choices of what I buy also have changed a little.
In summary, what the hell is the RIAA worried about? I feel most people are like me, they pay for what they like, and try to do the honest thing.
--Joey
"Ipsos-Reid has released its latest research on spamming. Bottom line, the great majority of spammers do not believe they are breaking the law. Only 9% feel there is anything wrong with their actions. With 40 million Americans identified as active spam receivers this is indeed stirring information, though not surprising. Another stat, 73% of US spammers report that their motivation for trading was to offer people legitimate products and services."
I hate the RIAA as much as any Slashdotter, but does this really prove anything?
.
...and apparently is having no difficulty finding the exits!
Information wants to be free...
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
Kid Rock Starves to Death: MP3 Piracy Blamed. Sad, but true.
So what is going through the heads of the other 91 percent? That the copyrighted material you normally have to pay for somehow magically teleported to your hard drive?
I have my computer set up to download the billboard top 100, then continuously download the songs with my console-based gnutella client. I just let that bad boy run all night and day. The MP3s are immediately deleted of course, since I would never listen to that crap.
Since downloading MP3s is like stealing from the artists, I figure this should bankrupt those no-talent cretins in no time as their bank accounts are depleted by my endless downloading.
Doesn't seem to be working though.
Look how many people believe in the 24-hour ROM possession law? That's even funnier.
Capitalism works because of scarcity of resources. When something is no longer scarce (say... music downloads), people aren't willing to pay much or anything. Perhaps if they hadn't destroyed copyright law, and things from 30 or 40 years ago had entered public domain, people might be more willing to pay for new music. Imagine being able to freely download/trade any music produced before 1973.
100% of Britney Spears surveyed think boob jobs and popularity go hand in hand and would recommend them to total strangers
Just playing devil's advocate here, but doesn't anybody think that 1,112 people is a pretty small sample size?
--Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
...in other news, a new study by the FDA revealed that 99.9% of pigs can not program computers, and 80% of people think bacon is tasty. PETA picketed to protest this "nazi-esque" survey.
Repeal the DMCA!
Only 9% feel there is anything wrong with their actions.
So what are we supposed to take from this ? What percentage of shoplifters really think they're doing something wrong (I know some think they're forced to do it, or that no one is really being hurt) ?
What percentage of heroin users think there's anything wrong with their actions ?
What percentage of the 9/11 terrorists thought there's anything wrong with their actions ?
What percentage of Timothy McVeigh's philosophical brethren think anything's wrong with his actions ?
What percentage of NAMBLA members think they're doing anything wrong.
Hey, this isn't a flame. It's just that when someone trots out an obviously meaningless statement, they need to be called out. Just because people don't think that what they do isn't wrong, doesn't mean it isn't - or is.
Really, when you think about it, people should have the right to share published media with each other. The problem is that everyone in the US has been brainwashed by corporations into thinking that it's stealing (though the copying has no direct effect on anyone) They use smear words like "piracy" and "theft" to describe the simple act of sharing information with your neighbor. I don't know about you, but if I had a song or program I liked and my friend asked for a copy, I wouldn't hesitate on giving him one. Cooperation is more important than copyright. It's a shame the music "industry" doesn't see it that way; instead they'd like to jail anyone who shares music. The same goes for the software industry. They are all just greedy bastards who use the law to threaten good people who share with their neighbors. Don't be bullied by these assholes!
Thats the problem - when you give people Freedom and Liberty - you just don't know what they're going to do with it.
Like - invent p2p networks and then trade files with it.
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
> I beg to differ. Its pretty apparent to anyone you talk to that they know they are breaking the law, they just don't care.
"I" beg to differ. I was working on networking stuff at my uncle's house last weekend. They share Win98 CDs in his household and probably other software as well. They don't think that they are doing anything wrong legally. I have a client who asked me if I have a copy of certain software. I said "No" for various reasons, but I really don't think that she knew anything about copy right laws. If you are working for Fortune 500 companies and what not, yes, they know what implications of violating copy right laws are and what they can and cannot do (should and should not). But once you go out there and meet "normal" citizens, you'll marvel.
So much for freedom of speech - Dixie Chicks got censored for being anti-war. I don't like their music, but there is surely something wrong here.
I delete the MP3s that failed to inspire me to support the author by buying a CD. If I find something great, I'll buy a CD even if there's just one good song on it. MP3s just aren't good enough for my headphones. If there was a standard that's "good enough" (WMA comes close) I think 50-70 cents would be a fair price for an electronic copy of one song with no copying restrictions (after all I'll need this track at work and in my car, too).
I feel like I'm breaking the law in a trivial sense, as if I were going 5 mph over the speed limit. What concerns me more is whether I'm doing something wrong. I'm on the fence about this and do have pangs of guilt at times, but I have a nice rationalization on call for those occasions: I still contribute to the artists by buying CDs; On the other hand, if I were to completely swear off file-sharing services I might be doing more harm by impeding new and vastly more efficient technology so an industry that has benefited greatly from society (and can easily afford to give something back) does not have to go through the inconvenience of replacing its outdated distribution system (or otherwise exercising its collective gray matter). Fundamentally I realize this may just be an attempt to justify stealing, but consider that the music industry may now be trying to sell something that should no longer be salable: the unnecessary material distribution of non-material (digital) goods. If you take away the physical component (which is now easily done), is an album still worth $18? Or is it now worth $1, which is something that is unacceptable to the recording industry? Kinda makes you wonder who's doing the stealing.
Someone please tell me why identical twin brothers are kissing each other on Christine Aguileras latest video? Gay is one thing but incest/gay is going too far.
The "minority" you speak of that caused prohibition was primarily women stretching their political muscles.
:)
/.): I did not substantiate it in any way, so you can't argue it's truth by presenting any flaw in its conception. The only thing that you might argue is that income tax is not a bad thing than angers voters.
As near as I can figure, the argument is something like this:
Women's Sufferage movement: WE NEED TO VOTE!
Everyone else: Why? Aren't things going okay for you?
Women's Sufferage movement: WE ARE MORALLY OPPOSED TO ALCOHOL!
Everyone else: I guess you've got your convictions (and a few mumbles of approval that win support to the sufferage movement)
When it came down to it, the reason was mostly just an excuse to allow women to take the power they should have already had.
The prohibition movement was a small push that turned the tide.
I'd like to think that all of the women in America hold a lot more political power than media conglomerates, and unlike perhaps Christian moral law, women have *not* been completely replaced by money and corporate interests. But enough about that...
The primary goal of politicians is to stay in office - which means convincing the majority of the public that they are helped, or at least not hindered by this politician, since politicians are elected. If they don't, they won't get reelected.
The secondary goal of a politician is to make lots and lots of money - which is often in opposition to the first goal, since doing that may require that a politician attempt to legalize corporate crimes against his constituents.
As I see it the fine line they walk is to pass all the laws they can which legalize crimes against the constituents, while enforcing as few of these laws as possible, so that said constituents will not find out, get mad, and boot them from office. Then the new guy will have to repeal the "crime is legal" law before he starts writing his own.
Seems to me Congress is doing exactly that and will continue to do so as long as possible until they really anger the voters. Then they'll change whatever law made us the angriest, wait a few years, and write it again.
I have a theory that this perturbation process actually results in corrections becoming more major as time goes by (because the problem gets worse at a more fundamental level). If I'm right, one day income tax will be repealed.
Note to anyone arguing against this theory (a little note to help the argument-impaired here on
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
Aha! I see having a society of mindless sheep is a double-edged sword! *manical laughter*
Otherwise, every a new format comes out, people would demand to buy a new copy on that new format at cost. Instead, they can sell you the record album, tape and CD (and if the future DVD) all with basically the same content, but at full price.
If you walk in to a store and take a CD or a shirt or whatever, that means someone else can't buy it. If you download a song, other people can still download it too. If you could clone physical objects (something like the replicators on Star Trek), then would it be a crime to clone yourself a copy of that t-shirt?
I would really like to know, as IANAL, where the Law really prohibits sharing of files like this? Forgive my ignorance here, but my understanding of copyright law (as minimal as it is) is that the act of copying and sharing is not illegal, but the act of copying and selling is, mainly for the reason of damages... Where as copying and sharing as to my knowledge never been shown in court to cause damages...
I am currently in a copyright infringement lawsuit, and the maximum statutory damages is $500 - $10,000. In my case, a few images were printed in a book, and the plaintiff has been unable to prove any damages (not unlike the RIAA) has claimed multi $100k's worth of damage... So if individuals only copy a few files in their life, there's no way true damages could ever be proved against an individual in P2P...
So from that viewpoint, P2P is legal, but piracy (selling copied copyright'd works) is illegal. Again, IANAL, so if anyone has some straight solid case law or something to prove me wrong here, or simple knowledge of Law, I'd like to know...
-v
If all resources are easily produced and distributed, I suspect capitalism and supply vs. demand goes out the window. Maybe we're getting a slight taste of an advanced civilization with this internet thing. i.e. Information (read: music filez) is so easily produced and distributed that there is a movement away from a capitalistic system/model within the given context. Whatever happens the gov., by definition, will be in the way. I believe its time to make a choice... Free information or no free information. And NO I'm not interested in reading your diary.
slowjoe
sigs suc
Wow.
People were downloading with a promise to buy?
I'd better get some kind of big, honking raise 'cause it looks like I am going to be spending a fortune on porn in the future.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
Personally speaking, I don't have much of a problem with MP3 & movie trading. Though the RIAA would like us to believe that their sales drops are caused by all these dangerous mp3's, they also fail to mention that their declining profits precisely match the declining number of albums that they've been putting out in the last couple years.
As far as movies go.... How many movies out there are really up to DVD quality? Or even Broadcast TV quality? Not many! And certainly not before the movie has been put out on DVD do you find DVD quality rips... so does the MPAA really loose money, either? I seriously doubt it.
I can't speak for the rest of the free world.. or even the rest of Americans. But personally, if I download something and actually like it, I go out and buy the CD or DVD. Not because I feel that I have to, but because there are good reasons to. DivX & mp3's don't come with spiffy inserts and the extra's that make a store product worthwhile.
/dev/random
Why is it immoral to steal. You present this assumption as if it is fact, but is it?
As long as the record companies are perceived as the thieving bastards that they are, people will feel no guilt about sharing a few tunes.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
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1) Anything that to shareholders of the constituent record companies looks like lost sales
2) You having more informed choices (hence bringing the commodotized music market closer to a free market)
3) Losing ground to new distribution technology. Or realizing that record companies and "labels" are becoming less important for the purpose of getting music to an audience (being replaced by the internet, and direct marketing)
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
"... additional education and awareness on the importance of intellectual property rights in this new era of content distribution may be necessary."
Perhaps it's the record companies that need re-education about the uselessness of intellectual propery rights in this new era of content distribution.
Internet killed the video star.
Have you downloaded Music or MP3 files from the Internet in the past month?
I did not download any illegal material in the last, month but my reply to this question is "Yes!". I did download music which was played at the background of movie trailers or flash sites. Yes, I did download MP3 files when I downloaded the ISOs of RH8.0, which include some sample MP3 files.
Not all music or MP3 downloading is illegal! Not all music is even copyrighted.
Make even shorter URLs - 8LN.org
Doesn't anyone upload MP3s anymore? You insensitive clods.
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I think much of this piracy stems from bitterness over lost jobs, high gasoline prices, gov't budget cuts, overpriced music and DVDs etc. Those who have managed to keep their jobs find themselves being given twice as much work, which they must accept or be put on the sidewalk.
I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying a lot of individually petty reasons can add up to a very big grudge. And we have lots of little reasons. Plus the shadow of a controversial war and vague threats of terrorism. So most people like getting their entertainment without leaving the shelter of their home.
So in total, people feel exposed and abused, and may feel the need to "strike back." How easy it becomes, then, to download some silly little file with music in it. Bunch of greedy suits, and the artists hardly see a dime of it anyway, so what's a dozen little music files?
Then there's the opposite end of the spectrum, The Collector. He (or she) downloads for the sake of downloading. "Hey, the entire Jimi Hendrix back catalog. That might come in handy one rainy evening when I have nothing to do." These people get it because they can, don't really listen to the music, and use what they listen to as nothing more than a digital radio--just listening to the latest pop hits, doing so on their terms and deleting the file when they get bored of it.
So it looks like I'm painting a picture that doesn't leave much room for the ordinary, shameful theif. Truth is, there's enough gray area to fill an ocean. Gray area with regards to the theif's ethics, and with regards to the concrete results of their actions.
The bottom line, for me: Is someone reducing your profit when they weren't going to buy it anyway? Yes, when profit is reduced exactly because the item is so easy to steal.
Next SuperBowl is going to have a huge crop of "Piracy supports terrorism" ads?
The story writeup has a howler of a conceptual mistake: It conflates the idea of breaking the law and doing something wrong. If you had asked American downloaders whether they're breaking the law, I'm sure the great majority would say they are. But get with it. Sometimes breaking the law is the right thing to do. Now I'm not saying that filetrading is a sort of civil disobedience, but I think, understandably, many Americans think that filetrading is as immoral as jaywalking--so, not very.
If the statement is "9% of people feel their ACTIONS are wrong" then it implies that they only asked people who are doing the downloading. So how does that compare to the general population (taking into the people who aren't doing any downloading of mp3s). I would guess that the people who feel their actions are wrong aren't doing any downloading at all
Slashdot's article misinterprets the data in the report. 73% of the people didn't say their motivation for downloading was for a later purchase. The survey asked if they enjoyed the ability to listen before they buy. Enjoying the ability to listen before you buy doesn't imply that that was their reason for downloading.
--
silence is poetry.
I think most companies are missing the point here.
The airline industry in the USA is down 51%.
Nobody is downloading airplanes.
Big deal the music industry is down. So what else is new. Everyone is not doing that great right now.
They pay nothing and expect we'll buy all there stuff. With what?
The computer comes along and everyone spents there cash on computers and other things like movies and music suffered. What's the mistery?
You could always record right of a radio and MP3 are not any better sound.
The people that are saying hey your ripping off the artists ! Oh really? You guys been ripping them off for over 50 years big time. Every dollar they make just remember probably less than 5 cents goes to the artist. Who is ripping of who?
Like I want to know where do they think up these prices. Xp costs like what? I don't even want to know and cost probibly about 1 cent to produce.
Same with cd's they cost probibly around about a cent each and there selling them for what? Who is ripping of who? All I got to say is how it feel?
The shoe lands on the other foot now. Times have changed man and no amount of anything is ever going to keep it from changing back.
Really nothing is even new people have been recording music and sharing it with there friends for 50 years. Saying I got 3- gigs of mp3 is like saying 20 years ago I got 10,000 8 track tapes. Who cares there still crap sound. They're worthless...
"Don't steal music."
$DEITY bless $NATION
In a bourgeois democracy the interests of big capital always triumph. Big oil is about to get its war in days and yet most of America thinks it is "liberating" Iraqis by slaughtering and conquering them much the same way the british thought they where "civilizing" india and africa by enslaving and conquering them.
If American's can't even stop imperialist war do you think they will be able to stop copyright cartels?
Most of the peope have been neutralized because the screen in their house has told them many many lies. Now they are incapable of stopping anything. The copyright cartels control the lie screen. How can you stop them?
If you can truly benefit from it, then it IS moral.
I would have never paid for anyway -- it's not like making stricter laws is going to make me purchase things I couldn't have afforded in the first place.
I see the warez scene, and more recently the mp3 trading scene to be a lot like mixtapes in the DJ scene: it's a form of street promotion.
Compare the warez kids to DJs. The warez kids are the ones who collect all kinds of programs, and check them out to see if they're worth anything. DJs collect records, usually that they get as promos or through record pools, and distribute cut up versions of them to the public on tape -- usually to get the word out about the latest 'jam.' People buy the mixtapes, hear it mixed in with some other songs, then go buy a copy of their own . . at least that's what i always did. From every tape of course, there'd be maybe only one or two songs out of 20 or 30 that stood out.
There's countless games and programs that wouldn't have been nearly as popular if it weren't for the warez scene pumping it up, and then making the average individuals go out and buy legitimate copies, usually because they're not savvy enough to get it themselves. Whether they admit it or not, software companies need the warez kids to create street buzz.
If you really appreciate a piece of software, or an artist, you'll ultimately go buy it. If for nothing else because that 96k version you got off Kazaa sucks. Same thing with software. Case in point, I'm waiting every day for UT2k3 to come out for Mac. I could warez it, but it's not even worth the trouble, and I'd prefer to have a boxed copy and original CD.
that is all.
I think that as these services become even better (and I'm sure they will) I personally will feel a moral obligation to sign up for them. The music industry needs to learn their lesson--they can't get away with price bloating in the 21st century. Once they learn that and come up with viable alternatives like PressPlay and Rhapsody, I will have no problem paying them $10 to listen to whatever the heck I want, whenever I want.
I do want to make it clear, however, that I still have no problem downloading songs from Kazaa that I cannot find on the pay services. That right there should be enough for the record companies to see what they need to do to get our business back: High quality and variety, and a REASONABLE price.
They're just a fraction away from getting my business.
It's that "dire circumstances" part that makes "stealing is wrong" as a blanket statement untenable. That and also the scope of property rights. Sure a little property rights is necessary to keep society from breaking down, but does anyone really know how much property rights are necessary? And what about when society is already breaking down (as it appears to me it is now) and property rights won't do a thing to stop it?
Just don't go over your RIAA-set limit of 600 songs a day... =) Especially you Verizon ISP customers.
-------
"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
-- George Orwell
However, I'm actually convinced that a lot of people who would like to pay the artists (out of enlightened self-interest if not deep morals) *don't* ever buy the album not because they like being evil and naughty, but because *the physical medium* is actually more annoying than valuable, and downloads-for-money are still a novelty on both sides of the Music Industry (ack, what a term! I imagine hard hats on the music assembly line, turning out each manufactured instant hit
Illustration: I've been slowly burning my CDs to Ogg files for a while now -- I even have a pretty tall stack of CDs on my monitor right now just from the last 24 hours of ripping-with-grip -- because it's much more convenient to have the files on many fewer physical units, and because (for the tracks on my hard drive) then I can search by song title, etc. These are CDs that I've collected over the last 12-15 years, and as the collection gets heavier it gets less convenient.
Also, I think there is a slightly larger grey area than you seem to allow
My point is that there *is* some actual "sharing" that goes on in the online world just as there was before the Internet was a major social force. Wide-open directories of arbitrarily gathered music just to fill as many GB as possible, yuck, a different beast.
Aside, but related: Yes, it seems silly and transparent, just a built-in-excuse to say "well, if I own this album already (check), and could therefore potentially compress it for convenience play (check), then why not download from someone who has already done the compression work?" There's a very easy leap to say "Well, I obviously *could* buy the album at the record store down the street, and I intend to
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Someone is censoring these postings. This is obvious to me bacause I posted a reply to something, and it is gone. In addition, someone else had something to say that is gone. Luckily, I copied the article (not mine) and now I will paste it back for you all to read. Enjoy! As they say, information has a way of getting free!
---- The Censored Article -----
Look, I'll be honest. I, like most other people here, have downloaded pirated music from the internet. Its seductively easy, and if you have a nice broadband connection, really quick. The sound quality on the 128k MP3 format may not be "audiophile" quality but for those of us using regular computer speakers, and not $6000 Bose systems, its plenty good. Just like with gay sex and open-source software, its easy to think that because its fun and enjoyable, pirating music is okay, and should be permitted. But thats the wrong answer. Despite all the half-baked rationalizations cooked up by piracy advocates, no one can really refute the truth spoken by the recording industry: Sooner or later, the widespread distribution of near-perfect digital copies will destroy the market for commercial recordings, and make the production of the very product consumers seem so eager to pirate impossible. Just take a look at the music you download now. Sure, you may occasionally in a fit of self-righteous anti-commercialism download a legitimate "teaser" track released legally, or some free songs from no-talent "independent" artists who are giving away their wares because no one in their right mind would pay for them. But you know that almost all of what you download was recorded, produced, distributed, and marketed by the very recording companies you claim to despise, and would never have been committed to disc were there not the possibility of profiting from exclusive distribution rights to audio recordings. Every time you download a popular song illegally, you are decreasing the probability that commerical-quality music will be made in the future, for any price. Anybody who cares about the system of intellectual property which has made the American entertainment and information technology industries so dynamic, and enjoys their fine products, from Windows XP to the "Lord of the Rings" movies to your new cell phone with built-in games and internet access, should understand the necessity of crushing Kazaa once and for all. We know that what piracy companies are doing is reprehensible, and moreover, as the Napster case and every successive suit against online piracy services has shown, illegal. But Kazaa is worse than that. They have deliberately created an organizational structure, similar to the front organizations used by organized crime, to continue to operate and profit from their misdeeds in spite of legal sanction from every civilized country in which they have been sued. And like any crime ring, they have gone to great length to extract as much money from their "customers" as possible, using the enticing lure of pirated music to force paid advertising and virus-like spyware on the computers of their users. But in this modern era of international treaties and multi-national organizations such as the WTO, no one is beyond the reach of the law, and I believe that Kazaa can be crushed. They must be submerged beneath a tidal wave of litigation, until one day no internet provider will dare risk allowing them access. Any desperate tax-shelter island which offers them safe haven should be considered a rogue nation, isolated internationally, and added to the state department list of countries sponsoring terrorism. If the world can beat Kazaa, it will send a strong message that theft is wrong, and allow the content producers to lead the way into the beginning of the true information age.
...I'm going to play a little bit of devil's advocate on Slashdot.
I hate the RIAA as much as any Slashdotter, but you have to look at where they're coming from. Sure, file sharing technology can be a wonderful tool for previously unheard-of artists to get attention, and it's an equally useful way to determine what new music DOESN'T suck. It's very useful in guiding your future music purchases...
Which is where the problem comes in. For every legitimate use of file sharing, there are easily 10 people who abuse it. How many people do you know have simply stopped paying for music because they can get it for free? Be honest. The RIAA only sees the negative side of file sharing, and to be quite honest, it can be pretty damn negative.
We need some sort of middle ground. File sharing can't go on unchecked, because that WILL hinder the RIAA's ability to profit. In the end, the RIAA is still a business and has a right to make money. However, if somehow they manage to crush major file sharing technologies, they'll alienate most of their cosumers. In addition, the artist who actually made the song should get at least some say in this matter; Metallica sued Napster over that very issue.
That's the key: a middle ground. I don't know what that middle ground is, but we definitely need it.
"It never got weird enough for me." - HST (RIP)
ya know the way people try and make this sound is so funny to me, 'sharing information' its not like people are downloading the human dna straind to evaluate, or maybe some home made nano plans, no no they are downloading the lastest pop singles. does that really advance our world or teach people that if you dont see your victim then its not stealing. if you go to a tower records and walk out with a cd, its stealing the same as going on your favorite p2p and downloading it. do i care if people steal? no, just have the balls to admit it and stop hiding behind sharing information like your pop music has a higher command over the human race.
I think that is they key statement. In the U.S., most of the time the things we think are wrong are the things that harm the innocent. We have no problem breaking all sorts of laws when we drive, because we do not think it is likely we will do harm to innocent victims. Industry and government knows this which is why they try to show, for example, the damage that drunk driving causes, or link illegal drugs to terrorism. Of course, some of these links are more valid than others, and such ads do backfire when the assertions are bogus.
Which is of course what is going on with the music industry. The industry wants us to believe we are stealing from artist, even though the artists I talk to say most of the money is made off t-shirts and sometimes concerts. They want us to believe we are harming the local retailer, even though the local retailer is harmed more by Wal-Mart and online sales than by copying. They have thus far resisted the urge to tell us that the high level executes are going to forced to sell their Escalades and give up their trophy spouses if we continue to trade music. They might have a better chance by citing the number of people the industry employs, but in a time when unemployment continues to rise with no end in sight, and no leadership to control it, I do not see that even that will get much sympathy.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Easier said than done.
Me? The government sends me a check to do nothing.
You are on your way to becoming a talking head on television, or, if you are not photogenic enough, a speech writer for one of our representatives. Or, you can become a spokesperson for one of the big companies, proclaiming that toxic sludge is good for people. You are even more qualified if you (as seems likely) simply plagiarized your posting.
Ok.
Any mp3 is just a number, albeit very large.
Copyright on files means that you are posting restrictions on numbers in natural row...
(licensed to use that? restricted to use).
Ok. why not copyright 20? or 40?
It's way too easy to set this up... point, click, there's your file.. did you kill anybody? No. Did you steal anything tangable like a car? No. Yet the law can enoforce punishment like it is... It's a classic adam and eve don't eat the fruit test... way to much temptation... way to easy... just like from the beginning nobody can resist forever. It's a problem that will not go away until it's legalized. How can you possibly stop it? Way to easy to set up a file server that anybody can connect to... I don't see a solution.
||| I still can't believe Parkay's not butter.
True, I probably only buy one out ten of the songs that I download. But since the other nine usually don't last more than 20 seconds to 5 minutes on my system, I think to 'listen and buy' model is still an acurate description.
Of course the fact that internet allows me to buy many more imports and/or indie artists is still bad for the major labels. But that's a different rant entirely.
omnia tua castra sunt nobis
100% of Iraqi Citizens voted for Saddam this year.
I agree wholeheartedly with your comments. My understanding of the RIAA argument is "Record sales are down, therefore that must be caused by filesharing". Perhaps they miss the point that the general public is bored and disinterested with the bland repetitive "product" which these companies provide. Today, the music industry is not about music but about product. When was the last time you saw a fat ugly woman with a beautiful voice in the Billboard charts. Pop music isn't my taste, but I'm not being snobbish about it - it has it's place. But the fact that it is mainly marketted to 11 year olds surely tells a lot about how adult interests aren't being considered.
The RIAA was borne out of the fact that these companies were able to utilise vinyl record technology to fulfill a service which the general public wanted, to provide popular music to the mass market. Today they've stepped away from that original premise. Mainstream music today is bland because it is easier to sell music that everyone finds inoffensive than sell music which some people think is great (and obviously others will hate).
For the record, I download mp3s from filesharing networks. And what I have found is that it has instroduced me to music I wasn't aware of before and I have purchased CD's off the back of those downloads. Those people who decry filesharing have obviously never used it. mp3 quality is ok for basic PC speakers, but usually sounds poor on a decent stereo. Downloaded mp3s are freqeuently incomplete. So it doesn't replace any other medium, but is an addition. I can't use my local radio station as a sampler for the sort of music I like. filesharing lets me do that.
The Romans didn't find algebra very challenging, because X was always 10
The item about people downloading music to obtain previews/samples of music they might later purchase has got to have the RIAA companies thinking that maybe all that money they've been spending on payol^H^H^H^H^Hpromotion might be wasted. And it can't help the owners of the cookie-cutter style radios stations feel very good about the number of people who are finding an alternate means of discovering new music.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Owning people isn't that strange. I mean the majority of people in America have to rent themselves to a master for 8 hours a day to feed their family so it's not that strange
(emphasis mine)
We rent, that's correct. If we where owned, we'd be forced. Oops, look like you've own3d yourself.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
Services have a value.
I will admit that I download music. The thing is, for most songs, I had never seen the cd that it is on, or heard of the band name. For a few, I can't even find that a cd (or band) exists. Others, like Kraftwerk, are just darn hard to find cds for. I grabbed a few KW tracks, and wouldn't you know, now I have ordered 3 of their albums to date. I especially like "Computer World". How geek is that? ;)
-phish
ok i just had this idea, how bout we All start 'sharing' gasoline!??! buying gas supports terrorism anyways right. so who does it hurt to go out at night and rig a gas pump to spit out free gas? that stuff is expensive as hell anyways, in a few months theres no money going to terrorism they cant buy fancy weapons our army destroy them and we live safe, and the gov is forced to introduce a cheaper cleaner fuel on our demand. then then we um.. we.... download more pr0n!
I find a big reason I listen to MP3s is because I hear new things all the time with them. On an average week I probably download 20 songs that I've never heard of, and put them into my random rotation. Often times when I'm listening to my collection I hear something I've never heard before... which is cool.
I find myself doing a similar thing in my car. I always listen to radio in my car, not because I love the music the radio plays, but because it's random. I don't know what's going to happen next (even though it'll prolly suck).
I dislike CDs cause they're a fixed format. Every time I listen to one, it's the same thing. I don't think I'm alone in liking the randomness of formats like radio and MP3s. It would be nice if record companies could offer me something legal to listen to my genres without having to worry about downloading stuff or hearing a song more than a few times. (Maybe I should try XM Radio.)
my blog
Can't we already do this already with the current system of audio theft? I'm pretty sure that I can download music that was made before 1973 if I looked hard enough.
--Forest C. Adcock--
I could agree with the logic of song preview before purchase. In looking for download files, I have found MANY differenc music choices that I would not have seen otherwise. But with all the new CD's being "corrupted" and not playable on a PC, I have not purchassed anything in a long while.... Just a thought
And yet I feel that the British and American actions bring us closer to world peace. For the purpose of war is that eventually one side will give up.
Dear God, I pray that this hackwrench is a troll...
IF downloading mp3's ripped from CD's is illegal, then why can't I make a recording at a live concert? Each concert is different; each seat and angle. I'm supporting the artist and i'm getting material not available on CD. Why is that illegal (for most concerts)? And after all, isn't that what the recording companies are doing - paying the artists (I with my ticket, they with hopefully substantially more cash) to perform live and recording it? So I don't get the fidelity and one-on-one nature that they get as well as retakes and digital remixing and tone balance and the lie. In reality, live recordings probably hurt the artist more - some bands are horrible live and the price of a ticket is often greater than a CD. Plus people tend to by shirts and stuff. I just want something I paid for... the ability to listen to what I did whenever I want. Otherwise, anyone caught on a video tape or audio tape who has exclusive deals with a corporation should be able to sue you because you taped them. Soon entertainers will sign with major labels for extended amounts of work (x amount of films) instead of pick and choose which parts they wish to audition for an turn down scripts they dislike. Soon the Media Conglomerates will own all. I just can't wait...
---- The geek shall inherit the Earth.
Further more, i read a stat the other day on /. that the RIAA was complaining that sales are down 10% in the last five years. BooHoo. The economy as as a whole is down 37% +- in the last five years.
wtf? I guess you may be talking about the stock market being down but this is quite irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. If the economy (measured by GDP) was down that much, we would see riots and general strikes.
A company's revenue is comparable with the GDP, not stock market. And GDP is UP in last five years.
Revenue being down is actually the worst sign in business, much worse than profits or stock price (which may fluctuate quite wildly) being down, it is much harder to recover from. So any businessman would have quite a lot of reason to worry if their sales have fallen that much.
When men used to be men
Everyone seems to think the record companies are cheeting them out of money. They are simply offering a product at a price. If you don't want to pay that price, then don't!
Or just steal the music via Kazaa, thats what I do.
And what time zone are those times given in?
I would rather see the concept of intellectual "property" done away with entirely. And as a software developer, that would be a big hit for me.
No, I'm not. Mind explaining why you want me to be a troll so I can explain to you why it's good that I'm not?
'nuff said.
Plese excuse my poor writign. I am nto good at typsing and hate to yuse backspace when i am thinking fast and engliehs is my other langage. This guy make soem good points abotu the flwaed modretation system on the Slashdort. if we don't so somethign about this now, w'ell lose the site we all love and cherich. So go read this guys log journal and make discussing with yourself. I am positng this anonymousyl because I kow it will hurt my kamra to post with my regula accnotu/ Teh modretation sytem is definitley broken here. That's why this commnet will probalyl get moded down. If anyone her' has the balls like this guy do, then you wil l poste this stuff logged in. My kamra is to lo so afford that right now. If anyeon else with mod points is concerned about this problems please mod this up as well as teh other guys potsts. I putp one comment is his log hournal. Its the one wher e I say I am going to postt a linik to his thing. Rmember that this is the Slashdotg that we dont' want to see. Plese brign back the old Sladhost with no modretation so we can be more real. Or at leest fix teh moedretation sothat it works in more fair way6. Peoeple shoudl be abe l to be heared and noticed by everyone. There are too many unfiar thingks happeningn on the Slashdote. The wrong peoolp are geting allteh kamra and the peolep who say cool sutffs is gettnig moded down to fast so they are no never heard.d I am sick and tird of hearing some stupid peolpe talking aabotu thnigs tat dont matter at all. Thins like when peopel say that Ameirica ois a good country. and thar linux is not god for the peolep. Linux is th good opertating sytem that makes peopl work better than their micro$oft windoes pc. a lot of peopel talk bad botu the X windoe sytem. It suprerior to winshit becaus e ti can be newtworked withot no one knowing it. Users use programt htat is far a wawy but it s like on the same machine but its noet. Wincrap not haet his pheeature untli temrinal serve and X have it sinse begining in 1980s! Thta proves its suprerior. They aws thinkin abotu the future. Those peopel new then that the inertnet waws the awy to the future. Micor$oft just peepee inthe pants then. Now they are running scare becuase the penguin is the - epower from them for no moeny. If the Slashodt would realize this is why we come here then they would make the modretation fixed. But they don;t. It makes me sad. dont forget to linik tothis man and make yout voice count!!! POER TO THE PEOEPL!!!
90 out of 100 people claimed they knew downloading music was illegal, but 90% of them didn't care. In addition, people on broadband count as 50 people because typical broadband connections are 50 times faster than dialup modem users. If a song is over 3.5 megs it counts as 2 megs because we say so.
"cognitive dissodance", I don't know what does.
Keep your packets off my GNU/Girlfriend!
Should it be switched both ways now? Like "French of Speech"?
-phish
Information has value too. Or why do people pay money to take classes. Besides in admitting that services have value you are undermining your initial argument that if it does not have a physical shape, then it has no value. If you want to look at it from a services perspective the artist performs a service in rendering the work.
The artificial scarcity problem they cause is much more insidious than this. They do everything they can to control the means of distribution and limit the ability of competitors. This is the whole reason behind their support for DRM and war on the internet. It has little to do with protecting their copyrights.
"C'mon girl it's not a french kiss, it's a freedom kiss."
-Look lively. LOOK LIVELY!!! --Mr. Shmallow
Sure there won't be any new songs, but then I haven't heard all the ones already out yet.
I rarely hear of artists (except the big M) complaining about file-sharing. I haven't heard many artists come forward saying "hey, that's not fair" or "hey, you're hurting us."
:P
Instead, I hear the big music conglomerates shaking their heads saying "hey, you're cutting through our business model" and "hey, that's not fair." And, of course, when they first said "hey, you're hurting us" a few years back, their sales went up (for a time).
The obvious change is happening: consumers don't want to buy albums anymore - we want to buy songs. Individually. And once we have the song, we want to be able to shift it between mediums as we see fit. For a long time, music companies have gotten away with albums because it was the most conveniant way of selling a bunch of songs from a band. But the technology exists now to purchase songs on an individual level - and this scares them.
It scares the agencies because they can't try and re-sell the same songs on compilation CDs. It scares some artists because filler material won't cut it anymore. It scares anyone attached to the tired old business model of dictating to customers how music is to be enjoyed.
It really scares producers because where once a flavour-of-the-month artist could sell an entire album or two, the new methods would only allow them to sell that individual song. Heaven forbid that consumers have a right to pay for only what they want.
But what scares them most of all is that, in the "new economy", artists may no longer need big distribution companies to reach an audience. No, a band can strike up their own website and share their content globally without having to even pay for the servers - their listeners will do that for them. File sharing means that distribution companies no longer have a monopoly on distribution. And they are scared because their confortable monopoly is in danger. Real danger. And it's being decided, not in the court of litigation, but in the court of public opinion.
And they're loosing. And they're scared.
Price, Quality, Time. Pick none. What, you thought you had a choice?
The "fair use" exemption to (U.S.) copyright law was created to allow things such as commentary, parody, news reporting, research and education about copyrighted works without the permission of the author. That's important so that copyright law doesn't block your freedom to express your own works -- only the ability to express other people's. Intent, and damage to the commercial value of the work are important considerations. Are you reproducing an article from the New York Times because you needed to in order to criticise the quality of the New York Times, or because you couldn't find time to write your own story, or didn't want your readers to have to register at the New York Times web site? The first is probably fair use, the others probably aren't.
Fair use is usually a short excerpt and almost always attributed. (One should not use more of the work than is necessary to make the commentary.) It should not harm the commercial value of the work -- in the sense of people no longer needing to buy it (which is another reason why reproduction of the entire work is a problem.)
Note that most inclusion of text in Usenet followups is for commentary and reply, and it doesn't damage the commercial value of the original posting (if it has any) and as such it is fair use. Fair use isn't an exact doctrine, either. The court decides if the right to comment overrides the copyright on an individual basis in each case. There have been cases that go beyond the bounds of what I say above, but in general they don't apply to the typical net misclaim of fair use.
The "fair use" concept varies from country to country, and has different names (such as "fair dealing" in Canada) and other limitations outside the USA.
Facts and ideas can't be copyrighted, but their expression and structure can. You can always write the facts in your own words.
Yep - I have to own up to it - my parents were pirates !
Way back in 1972, along with my first memories, I remember the little tape deck they had where they played - gasp - horror - taped versions of friends albums !
Needless to say, I thought this was a totally normal thing to do. When I started buying my own records, I also had a large collection of "pirated" tapes of friends records and they had tapes of mine - we traded.
CD's came along and records and taping died out, but what came along to replace them ?
Digital copying of CD's with the distribution model now being the internet.
The scale of trading has gotten considerably bigger, but the attitude remains the same.
Most of us Grew Up with pirated music and never really gave it much consideration - after all, we also frequently purchased music.
There is no way that this attitude will ever change - unless of course all hardware related to copying music is outlawed, which would include every single home computer.
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
That didn't just make me laugh out loud, it kept me laughing out loud, and I still laugh when I think of it....
Actually, the majority did support it.
The United States government implemented Prohibition only after the Temperance Movement had worked for nearly 150 years to push for it.
By the 1830s the idea had spread, the movement had it's ups and downs, but large segments of the population were behind it, first the women's rights movements, then anti-immigrant and finally pro-business organizations.
The 18th Amendment to the Constitution--passed by Congress in 1917, and ratified by 3/4 off states by 1919 was then suplemented by the Volstead Act which defined what an alcoholic beverage was.
It's common to think that Prohibition was like a war on drugs, just shoved down the people's throats by the Feds, but it was voted on by Federal and State Senates twice to get to the Amendment point, then again at the Federal level with the House and Senate to enact the Volstead act.
When I download an mp3 of a song that I already own on CD I do not believe that I have broken the law. Perhaps only 9% of p2p network users are downloading music they don't already own. :)
Here's what we really need to know: of all the people who have access to pirated music, how many don't download it, and why? Undoubtedly there are going to be many people who don't do it because they don't listen to music very much, or because they don't have time, or other pragmatic reasons. Some, however, don't do it because it's wrong. That's the fraction I'm interested in.
Articles that simply conclude that most people who do X think X is okay just aren't all that interesting.
I write in my journal
When does something like this stop being illegal and start becoming a "our IP system sucks" issue to the mainstream?
I mean if it was murder thats one thing, but on something so subjective as this when does it become and issue of "40 million people can't be wrong".
Considering there is only 280 million people in the US and 40 million of those are downloadingmusic (arguably that 40 million is the 40 million CAPABLE of doing it, if more people understood how to do it I would bet you anything that number would be way higher).
I guess as long as RIAA's pocketbooks are fat enough we will still all be "criminals". What kills me is the consensus amongst some people that "its theft, plain and simple".
You show me a way to not buy 95% garbage and JUST get the songs I want and I will give you a little leeway. Show me a recording industry that doesn't behave like the mafia and I will give you a little leeway. Show me a RIAA that doesn't lie (look at their claims of financial loses due to P2P) cheat (look at how they try to push legislation allowing them to tamper with other people property when and how they feel like it, via DoS attacks, viruses, etc. etc.) and steal (look at the way artists are treated, look at the LONG history of artists being royally SHAFTED by the recording industry) and I will give your argument a little bit of leeway.
The arrangement isn't ideal, I will grant you that, but who's fault is that? Mine because I dont want to be fleeced anymore for a 95% bogus product? Or the recording industry's, who doesn't feel like changing, who wishes to restrict us and our liberties (note, not freedoms, liberties) because they are too antiquated to try to adapt?
"The saddest words of mice and men, are not those which were, but should have been."
I bet you wouldn't say that if you had to actually pay for the sourceforge account that your perl batch image conversion script is hosted on.
I like many other people hear will download songs to sample them and will normally go on to buy the CD. The reasoning behind this is that if you actually do do MP3 -> CD and then play it on a decent hifi it sounds awful. There is no depth to it, no soul. CD's can provide that and that for me is 1/2 the expierence
rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
So I have this confusion in my brain. Perhaps someone can help me sort it out. It seems sharing music is significantly different from sharing software.
I give this reason: Throwing out record companies, musicians could still give live concerts and still make good money. What is the equivilent in the software business? What is to motivate a programmer (aside from the love) to write code knowing it will be freely spread across the planet? I'm not talking about expensive/big software packages that require call-in activation or dongles, I'm talking about the kind of little projects I've considered writing on the side for a little extra income.
I foresee a day where information is given freely all over the world. Anti-competition contracts will be done away. The patents will be individual/team events, not company events. Companies will resemble schools more than the current sorry state of legalized piggy-backing. I believe I can program with the best of them, don't you? How stifling it is to have a company bring me to a new level, inspire in me great ideas, and then try to own them for up to a year after my termination! "You've brought me this far -- give me a chance to take it and run." But no, they're worried they can't compete. The business folk don't believe they can compete, yet hire me because I'm some ignoramus, some blinded programmer with no business sense. Cowards. It's mere laziness, with a tad bit of greed. Such peon labor does exist, though if a company doesn't want my brain, I'll go work somewhere else. This does not concern me though; I believe God will give me good original ideas in my time. I hope all of us believe that. We are not stuck in some lame rut of being controlled by the business gods. My plan is this: I just don't sign the contract. So far employers have valued me more than that. You should try it.
With that in mind, I've tried to picture a world where the average company would use open-source software and hire a programmer to add a needed module to it. In that motif, though, I struggle to see the motivation for a lot of the necessary software on the market. How can I reconcile that motif with the advantages of free intellectual property?
As for you record companies, you are used to spreading lots of information all over the place. The internet has the same purpose, why not compete? Challenge the data format. Give out higher quality than the internet can give, and you will make money. Your current position consists of making money through the free ride of occasional talent. And these days it seems the 'talent' portion is often forgotten. Do you call that integrity? Morally right? That is so much worse than downloading the few favorite songs without purchasing them -- a few minutes of a recorded event in history. You record companies have no right to preach morals -- spare me the hypocrisy please.
Mr. Heavyweight:
For best results, you should consider moving to RAID10, and ditch those low-capacity, failure-prone JBs for something a bit higher on the food chain. JBs feature an enhanced STR, true, but even a U-series from Seagate can handle the 15GB/hour of HuffYUV that video capture nuts need (a vidcap nut would of course be better to spend money on PC2700 RAM and a 333FSB processor). Keep those drives around, if you get into editing, but if you're like the rest of us, it's all "rip and encode"!
Maxtor's MaxLine 320 might not be out yet, but in a month, six of them should give you the data storage and redundancy we know you crave.
For those with lower-density pornographic needs, I recommend Samsung's SV120H4. 120GB, sure, but also quiet, reliable, cool and highly compatible with even the crappiest of Highpoint RAID controllers, the value-priced SpinPoint 120 is a winner all around. Maxtor's slightly higher-end 541DX is a real workhorse in this category as well.
Lastly, there's the matter of offline storage. CDs of course are convienent and commonplace, but switching discs every two and a half minutes is such a hassle! Multiple burners? Forget about it. Kick off one only to start another? Puh-LEASE! For your end-result pr0n storage, what you need is a 4X DVD-R drive, such as the Sony 500AX multi-format burner, and a copy of Ulead MovieFactory2 to handle the diverse array of sources and conditions that your source material arrives in. Downloaded from Kazaa? Yup. Capped off the scrambled PPV channels? Right-O!
And to top it off, for the stuff that isn't good enough to wind up on DVD, you can always make a data disc with a whopping 7(!) 670MB files.
---
slaker is a non-syndicated slashdot reader with a porn collection that exceeds the data storage of some small Eastern European nations.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
The RIAA has been yelping and screaming ( "OW! My profit!!!" ) ever since they (well, their affiliates) brought us fabulous new talent like 98 Degrees and Sum41.
"Gee, Bob, I can't understand why people aren't buying the CDs, these bands are practically clones of the last big hits we signed... Ahh, must be those God-damned pirates again! Betty! Can you get my lobbying group on the line, please? We got some ass to kick!"
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
I personally am feeling guilty for having to download tracks from some artists. when I download something I'll listen to it, and keep it if I *really* like it, and plan to purchase the album later (I really do, I'm now buying a CD a week now, maybe two a week), so with the mp3's i have, I delete them one by one as I purchase the CD. So I have a record of what albums to purchase. I don't buy it when people say that they will buy the album later, 98% of my friends/others/relatives say that they buy more CD's because of mp3's. No! They just buy bigger HD's. Well, I'm done for now, but if CD's do cost too much for you, get them used. You'll save a lot of money and have a legal copy.
Now, about me copying my CD's to MD, that's another touchy subject!
... and I don't care. I still download MP3s.
Hell, it feels good, stickin' it to the man!
Batlock...
I am ashamed that the president of the United States is from Texas. I sure didn't elect that cowboy!
Yesterday, everyone was carping and griping about spammers. "Ehh, ehh, ehh, it's a theft of our bandwidth."
Yet these same people have no problem stealing when it comes to other people's creative work.
Oh, and before some asshole says "it's not the same thing," it's not your bandwidth.
It's the evil record companies too. "Wahh. They overcharge. Wahh. it's a bad product. Wahh. They're greedy."
But these same people have no problem underpaying, and they have no problem hoarding immense archives of music while paying nothing. Same greed, different illegitimate justification.
I know filesharing is illegal. I know I really *should* go out and buy the CD or the DVD instead of downloading it. The problem (with music, at least) is that I find out that very little of the money is going to the artists themselves. I find that the music industry is getting tons of money for something they didn't even create. This makes me ask myself: Do I want to support the music industry? Quite simply, the answer is no. I discover that my money is really going where it ought, and I get annoyed. On a more legal note, what if I see a song that I want to hear, but the rest of the CD sucks. Should I go and buy a $25 CD for one song? My answer: Hell no. -Dae
"Alle reden vom wetter. Wir nicht." - SDS Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund.
j00 4r3 3n73r1ng l337 w0r1d.
It is also a service to themselves when they hear it, and a service to others when they hear it.
Give me a break! Only Americans ignore copyright regulations?? Citizens of other countries abide by copyright regulations like angels.... Why do I not believe that??
Last time I was in Hong Kong you could buy VCDs every other block on the Kowloon peninsula. Don't even get me started on Eastern Europe.
Where the Music Matters
No business has a right to make money. It's like the pursuit of happiness -- you don't have a right to happiness, you have the right to seek it out.
In the same vein, businesses have the right to attempt to make a buck; they don't have a right to be profitable. If the RIAA/MPAA/TLAA can't embrace the new technology then that's their problem, and they should die like the buggy whip manufacturers.
Or as Heinlein much more aptly put it,
(I had to google for this. Here it is (scroll down to "What Inspired Heinlein?"))
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
I was on the Academic Technology Committee at the university where I work, at one of the meetings we discussed library e-books and I didn't get the point. They were buying books that were available electronically, but the software was crippled so they could only be "checked out" by one person at a time, while that copy was in use nobody else could access it until it was "returned." I guess it destroyed itself on the user's hard drive somehow after a certain period of time and that was the return. And the text was actually image files so you could not search the text or copy and paste anything. These "books" cost more than your average library volume, although the library got a deal for buying lots of them at once. But I didn't understand why they'd bother. What's the point of getting electronic versions of a book at all? Those restrictions made the electronic copy functionally no different than the actual book -- worse in fact since you could still photocopy a real book, plus you get all the other advantages of having a physical book. We are crippling the technology as fast as we can invent it, just to protect the greed of corporations who own artists' work. I think the p2p issues are the same. Why should we cripple the internet? Why did we bother inventing it in the first place?
Ok, I'll buy punching someone in the dark is victimless.
Now kicking someone in a nuts, well there is scant a villany as that.
God spoke to me
Record companies exist because they profit off the distribution of music. If a new technology comes along that distributes music without the aid of the record companies (but also compensates artists who want a return for their work) they have no right to exist anymore, as they have ceased to serve a useful purpose. They sure as hell don't have a moral right to protect their existence by purchasing laws and undermining the will and right of fellow citizens.
If you had argued that musicians have a right to make money off their work, and hence P2P networks need oversight/repair/whatever, I would be more inclined to agree. The RIAA on the other hand has no right to fight a new technology that makes them obsolete using OUR government as THEIR weapon.
They have a right to _try_ to make money. They don't have a right to make money. If companies had the right to make money, then they could say things like "This filesharing buissness is hurting our sales, so we demand that it'll be judged illegal." or "This automobile buissness is hurting our lucurative horse trading buissness so we demand that it'd be stopped!".
Now, I do agree with most of what you're saying, but in the above case your choice of words were unfortunate.
You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. -- Harlan Ellison
i'd like to address this a little differently from the norm. mostly because i believe this issue is bigger than just music sharing.
in america, we have become a society of endless laws. laws passed are measured in boxes and tons, not pages as they ought to be. as such, there is no reasonable way to know all the laws we are subject to.
worse, in many cases the laws are written such that you are a lawbreaker regardless of how you act. a simple example:
in all states, you can be written a ticket for exceeding the speed limit. you can also be written a ticket for reckless driving, endangering other drivers, or assorted similar offenses. unfortunately, in many states the one of the latter laws is interpreted to include driving slower than the traffic around you. so, if you're driving in a 65mph zone, but all the surrounding traffic is going 75, you can be written a ticket for speeding. however, if you do 65, you can be written a ticket for endangering other drivers (or whatever law would be relevant in a particular state). so, basically, by driving at all on those roads, you are a lawbreaker and whether you are ticketed has little to do with your own actions, but is rather a random chance.
this kind of situation is becoming more and more commonplace, in large part due to the sheer volume of laws to which we are now subject. i believe we need to take strong action to eliminate a large number of laws, for then it becomes reasonable for the citizens to actually uphold them, which i think most of them probably want to do most of the time.
back to music sharing. laws and court rulings seem to conflict. the might not legally, but they are likely to be understood that way to the average person. you can timeshift on your vcr, why not music? you do have fair use rights, supposedly, although the dmca seems to void much of that. so, sure, everyone's a bit confused. and then, again by volume of laws, who knows what any of it says anyway? a few of us /. types have actually read small sections of law and have a better idea. but that's not commonplace. and what to we find most of the time? that the law says something other than what we would have thought otherwise--for better or worse! so, most people simple pick what seems reasonable and convenient to them.
does this make all this music sharing right? not legally. practically? yes, for most people, which is why only 9% have issues with it. this is not a surprise, but rather expected given the state of american law today.
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There is no law prohibiting any one from downloading MP3s. Its the Sharing of the files thats illegal. you can leech all you want.
- Get 100 people to buy a total of, say, 1000 different albums.
- The money is pooled, so each person owns 1% of each album.
- These songs reside in a central server or network, so that that each person has access.
- When a song is used, it is "checked out". Each song can only be played for one person at a given time. When the song is over, it is checked back in. Therefore no duplicate copies are created.
Using the above method, a legit liscense has been aquired for all the material, and, except for the phyisical aspects, acts just like a library. Any thoughts??
So somehow I think it won't matter if I download mp3s or not. It is pretty sad when you think of it really. But I don't really get much music these days anyways, since almost nothing comming out today is worth listening to.
If CDs were $5 I would consider buying them, that would be a more fair price for me.
Well, I for one think it is unjust that people who spend their time writing, singing, playing music, etc, should be paid over and over again for the same original effort. If I build a chair and sell it to someon, I've (presumably) been paid for my effort. I don't expect to continue to be paid everytime someone sits on that chair, or sells it to someone else.
Fair payment for effort taken, and quality of that effort is all well and good, and I do want the authors of the books I read and the music I like to listen to to be paid commensurate fees for their creative work.
I don't see any justification for a large company to extort royalty payments on the works of a long-dead author. No justification = unjust.
I'm not saying we can just throw away copyright. I feel we need to change the way that creative individuals are paid for their efforts, to bring it more in line with the rest of the population.
Politas
With a precedent like that, how was drugs prohibition implemented without requiring an amendment, or was no amendment ever required?
Sounds good except for the part where giving up your privacy does little or nothing to aid in preventing the kind of terror of which you're thinking and perhaps even makes it easier for the government and the corporations who lease it to come up with new (admittedly less likely to be fatal) ways to terrorize you.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Legal issues don't bother downloaders. If they did, then they wouldn't be downloaders would they?
Which may be translated as: "An Estimated 40 million Americans do not understand or do not want to understand that giving money to (MP|RI)AA is for their own benefit so they have to be gently showed that they are wrong."
Mr. Kleinschmit or whoever should consult Mr. Capone or somebody with equal qualities but still alive so that such "education" will be done the proper way.
Sounds funny but ...
hany
Okay... maybe not...
_______________________________________________
"A planet where walruses evolve from men?" - Get your flippers off me, you damn, dirty pinniped!
Newsflash: Americans just don't care about much of anything!
...the RIAA is still a business and has a right to make money. ...
Nope, no business has a "right" to make money. If their business model is sound and they offer a good product at a reasonable price, they have a chance.
Nowhere in the US constitution (or any other country's constitution for that matter AFAIK) is a "right to profit" stated.
xGSV Consolation of Dreams
Reading the above (quoted below) made me laugh. In the UK, the womans suffrage movement had *nothing* to do with alcohol.
--------
The "minority" you speak of that caused prohibition was primarily women stretching their political muscles.
As near as I can figure, the argument is something like this:
Women's Sufferage movement: WE NEED TO VOTE!
Everyone else: Why? Aren't things going okay for you?
Women's Sufferage movement: WE ARE MORALLY OPPOSED TO ALCOHOL!
Everyone else: I guess you've got your convictions (and a few mumbles of approval that win support to the sufferage movement)
The truth is people download music so they don't have to buy it. I think that "sampling" excuse is the biggest piece of crap. People buy the really really good stuff. The okay, mediocre, and good music with limited lifespans are the ones that nobody buys after downloading. Think about the excuse porn consumers give...that it's for "education." Not many people publicly admit it's for masturbation, but everyone knows what its for.
And I understand people buy the CDs that they're exposed to via downloading, but considering the amount of awesome music worth buying, I'd say people who abide by the rules are outnumbered.
One more word to the RIAA, if you don't like the situation, change the damn business model.
.smell my feet.
But he is right - I think it's the key point that filesharing is "victimless". Most people don't care much about rather abstract issues like "free speech" or "fair use", but they care about victims.
So "normal" people tend to obey laws that protect people (including themselves) from other people.
For example, shoplifting is considered to "less bad" for most people than breaking into a neighbour's house and taking his money, because sympathies for the victim (Wal Mart) are quite low.
Most people can't see how filesharing hurts anybody (Britney Spears? She is of course "rich enough" to care for herself), and that's why they do it.
You can flame me if you dissagree, fine.
As far as downloading things goes I see three completely different piles, software (warez), movies (SVCD and such), and MP3's.
You simply cannot group those three things together. There are different reasons, and different obstacles for each pile.
I won't talk about movies and music.
But I want to bring up software.
There is sooooooooo much buggy software today that you can waist quite a bit of money on software that simply doesn't work out of the box.
Can you imagine if car manufactures (or any other manufacturer for that matter) had the low quality standards that software devolopers have?
It would be awful.
But I have found that if I hit usenet I can normally find many different pieces of software to achieve whatever it is I want to achieve.
I download the warez, run it and if it is buggy I toss it out.
If it does what I want I buy it.
And I do buy it. I like to own my software. I want to be able to patch my software and add features. I don't want the fact that I have stolen it to get in the way.
I just want something that works out of the box.
Is that asking too much?
Okay so you bring up software with demos available.
Well.... I recently got screwed by this. I was looking for a TV client for my new ATI All In Wonder card. Intervideo seems to make good products. I demoed WinDVR. There demo only allows the software to be active for 5 (or 10 I forget) minutes at a time.
Seemed fair to me. I wanted to buy right away anyways.
I checked the quality, it was what I wanted so I paid $50 for it.
Guess what?
It has a problem that doesn't reel it's ugly head until after you have been using it for more then 10 minutes.
I haven't been able to find a solution so far.
You know how hard it is gonna be to get a refund for this?
I should have Warezed it and then bought it.
Lesson learned.
YOU LISTENING SOFTWARE DEVOLOPERS?
I don't download much music from the Internet but when I do I don't feel in the least bit guilty about it.
When I see record companies ignore or do their best to ruin almost any band whom I like and instead spend all their time inventing new "Pop Idol" formats and TV, Cartoon tie-in's it does not surprise me that their sales are falling. If they got back to basics and concentrated on promoting real bands / artists, who could play their own instruments - live, speak for themselves and write their own songs then I am sure they would see more interest in their product.
I would be curious to know what % of 'illegal' downloads are for manufactured crap such as Britney, Gareth Gates and all the other bands aimed at 6 year olds and their parents as opposed to downloads of real bands who we do not see quite so often on the TV.
I'd like to think that all of the women in America hold a lot more political power than media conglomerates, and unlike perhaps Christian moral law, women have *not* been completely replaced by money and corporate interests. But enough about that...
The problem with most feminist politics is that it assumes that "women" are a homogeneous group who share the same ideology and policy goals. Implicit in your statement is the assumption that there is no overlap between two groups "women in America" and "media conglomerates". Whereas in fact, you will find that the set you call "women" is actually a bunch of different people who have lots of different ideas about lots of different things, and that the set you call "conglomerates" actually employs vast numbers of the "women" set. In fact, one of the senior figures in the "conglomerates" set is actually also a member of the "women" set! Further, out here in reality, you will find another set called "men", all of whom can be said to agree with some "women" and some "conglomerates", and disagree with others.
In short, gender politics is simply not a useful framework for understanding the world, and neither is the idea that the world is divided into the opposing camps of "corporations" and "everyone else".
Are you sure it is not just some guy kissing a mirror?
Legal Issues Don't Bother Americans - don't you check the news?
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Equating "file trading" or "file swapping" with copyright infringement as this story does, is double speak IMO. If you want to address the problem of copyright infringement then refer to it explicitely otherwise we risk the demonisation of non-copyright infringing file trading.
That statement says nothing about piracy. Nothing about illegal copying. If I go to some artists personal homepage and download fully legal but free samples of that artists work, is that wrong ?
I suppose most people would answer "sometimes" to that statement. And that's not very useful. If the statement had instead said: "Downloading music from the Internet without permission from the copyrigth-owner is wrong." I suspect many more people would have agreed with it.
In 2006 Congress passed the Digital Piracy Prevention Act, increasing the minimum sentance for on-line piracy to 50 years in prison and a fine for the market value of the content pirated. The Homeland Security Agency was tasked with protecting the nations intelectual property and a new division created for the enforcement of on-line laws and regulations. In a bizarre parody of fiction, this force became known as Net-Force in reference to a partuclarly bad series of books published by the Tom Clancy estate.
Net Force derived most of of its power from the Patriot I, and II bills, removing its need for warrents, or even probably cause for its various searches and seizures. Rumor and accusation were enough to incur its wrath.
Ownership of a private personal computer soon became a liability in the United States. By 2014 every personal computer was required to have a unique government identification number and to pay a licence fee to the Federal Government to fund the organizations necessary to monitor it.
In 2015 the maffia entered the picture. Using chips and other components aquired overseas, small illegal hack-houses began building and distributing pirate systems. Specificly designed without the vulribilities Net Force and the DOHS required, these systems provided an expensive but unregulated medium to exchange information.
I suppose I could add more, but lets leave that up to someone else. Sure, it's largly based on that love song for napster peice... but is it really so much of a stretch?
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
typical lamer moderators. always mod something down if you disagree with it. Same about parent.
Stupid moderators shouldn't breed. OH wait, obviously they don't.
Read the fucking FAQ before you sniviling idiots moderate
I have done this many a time.
With the type of music I listen too, you don't just go out and hope a band is good. you have to hear it first or you waste a lot of $$.
You don't get it on the radio either. ( before you use that argument ) There are no refunds on crap music, unlike most other industries.. money doesn't grow on trees either, I have a limited music budget..
Anything I've not gone out and bought afterwards I wouldn't have in the first place. Is that wrong? Perhaps legally, but since no revenue was lost by the artist then I really don't give a damn. What I have bought more then makes up for it.
Perhaps I'm an exception, but its insulting to be tossed in with the others.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the providers of sex, the ladies (and occasional men) of negotiable affection, to recognise that sex wants to be free, and to provide their talent on demand. By sharing their sex, others are able to contribute to it, improving their technique. Ultimately the government should create a "sex tax" to pay these sex workers, while housewives would be prohibited from only providing sex to their husbands.
We must also abandon patents on sexual positions and toys, as they have stifled creativity in the sex industry. But we must also recognise that Free as in Free Sex does not mean the right to spam herbal viagra products. Indeed, viagra will no longer become necessary under the Free Sex utopia, as we will expose ourselves and feel comfortable with our bodies in a way not seen since Roman times.
Sex workers of the world unite!
It's too bad the recording industry cant realize that. Two things would revitalize their profits: encourage the artists releasing MP3s of their albums (heck, make them live versions if they want) and drop the price to under $10/cd. There's a lot of albums that I simply don't want to risk or bother wasting $20 on. But, I'm preaching to the choir.
Since I didn't get to respond in a survey...
YES: I download copyrighted material using the Internet.
YES: I know it is illegal.
NO: I do not think it should be illegal.
NO: I don't think it is wrong.
NO: I do not think MP3s are the same as CDs.
YES: File trading will continue long after P2P is illegal (if that happens).
YES: I buy the records that I download and like.
YES: I am a musician with copyrighted works that are traded freely on the Internet.
NO: I do not worry about MP3s impacting my sales.
YES: The future belongs to record labels dedicated to releasing strong music and not attacking their music-hungry customers for trying to hear more than their budgets/radio will allow. Music file trading will cease to be illegal OR wrong when musicians and record labels realize they need not fear the demise of music media as a commodity. CDs and vinyl will continue to coexist along with music sharing, as they have since they invention of analog tape recording.
I wouldn't argue that filesharing has little or no impact on the decline in CD sales. Instead, I'd say that this is a very good thing. A large part of society is basically saying that there isn't much value in the record companies burning CD's of prepackaged music for them and selling it to them at a healthy markup. Communal file sharing can be as transformative to our society as the Gutenberg press was, but the brutal fact is that there will be some parties that will lose big as a result (i.e. the record companies), while society as a whole gets a huge win, in the increased access to artistic content. Protecting the record companies now would be akin to protecting the companies who made punch cards for the computers of years past - it's a bad bet, period.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
There is no way I could afford the CDs to all of the music I have. I honestly don't feel that there is anything morally wrong with what I do. It is illegal, yes, but morally wrong? I don't think so. I buy the CDs for most of the music I really like to show support for that artist, not necessarly to give them money, but just by the fact that by puchasing something you are voting for that something, in this case the artist, and I like to show my support when I like the music, and I still think that buying the CD is generally more convienient than downloading it.
I think of it this way. If you had a magical machine that could instantly make a copy of any product, and you went to a car dealership and made a copy of a dodge viper, and this was something you could never afford anyways, would it be wrong? Dodge is not loosing a product they need to pay to get replaced, because it is a copy, and they are not loosing money in the form of you getting something for free that you would have normally payed for without your copying machine, because you could never afford it anyways, and would not otherwise have it. Is that really morally wrong? Now it becomes morally wrong, imho, when you go and copy the car you can afford, but just don't want to pay for.
Now companies will bitch and moan, this is expected. I could very well be wrong, however I think by law they need to fight a legal battle to protect their IP, otherwise it could be argued later in court that they give up the rights to it by knowingly allowing people to "steal" it, without trying to do anything about it. And of course it is legally wrong, but taking into account my analogy above, do you honestly think it is morally wrong?
http://www.archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmares
Ummm no.
If you steal a CD you are stealing something tangible. Granted the CD and packaging may cost all of $.50 to a record company, that is all you stole.
The I.P. is the music. This same music you can listen to free on the radio. I don't see the difference between downloading and listening to an MP3 vs. catching it when it's on the radio.
Would you concider recording the FM broadcast stealing? Are Tivos stealing by recording TV broadcasts?
As far as I'm concerned, P2P/MP3 can only help the music industry.
Canadians are reported to have consented to monitoring enmass with comments such as "oh well, what can you do?" ,"I sure hate those Liberals, maybe next time I won't vote for them" and "I'm not doing anything wrong, why should I care?".
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
Does anyone else think that Audioscrobber is the RIAA's wet dream? A database of music files played, linked to email and I.P. addresses?
Download music to try it out, and see if you'll get sick of an artist or band after a few songs. Also it will give you the chance to really get to listen to an entire CD.
If you download more than half of a CD and you enjoy the music, and you have the money. Buy that CD. That way, you know more of hte music you enjoy will continue to be produced, you are going to get a CD that you like (since you already know that you like the songs on that CD), and everyone is happy.
If you download only one song from a CD, don't worry about it. If you download a lot of songs from a CD, and they suck, just delete them after a while. Don't become a packrat storing hundreds of bad songs on your 80Gb harddrive just because you can. You know you don't listen them anywaiz.
Keep the songs you like, buy the albums you know you are going to enjoy (when you have the money), and everyone should be happy.
~ kjrose
When was the last time you saw a fat ugly woman with a beautiful voice in the Billboard charts.
You know, I never really though about it, but it's so true - hell, The First Lady herself probably couldn't land a contract today. Oc course, leaves you wondering how Rosen got where she is...
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
My dear departed barrister father taught me "Never confuse the Law with justice".
This is really disheartening to read. I hoped that law abiding segment was the majority. I really don't understand people who break the law in this way.
I'm actually in both groups, in a way. I don't download music (or movies) illegally, but if I could download them legally, it would be to preview for later purchase.
I don't think the music companies are making the right decisions, but they are within the law. If you don't like the law, change it, rather than ignore it.
The statistic is that: 9% of people who download music think it is wrong.
This suggests to me that the majority of people who think downloading music is wrong don't download music.
What would be interesting would be: what proportion of the population think downloading music is wrong?
Owl tried to think of something wise to say, but couldn't.
What, exactly, do modern day musicians (artists and 'performers') do to deserve hundreds of millions of dollars, again? They follow their calling well? So do I, and I am not entitled to millions for it.
Why is the IT job market in the dumps right now? Too many unqualified gold-diggers clogging the field.
Why is music in the dumps right now? Too many unqualified gold-diggers clogging the field.
Music was a hell of a lot better, imho, before the advent of the superstar. Not very rewarding, either -- I guess that meant you only sung if you had something worth saying.
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
I speed. It doesn't bother me one bit. Even if I get speeding tickets..... I continue to do 85 MPH. Apparently a lot of other people feel like I do. The posted speed limit is 55. They all speed too. I download music too. It doesn't bother me one bit. I'm trying to re-organize my MP3 collection now. It has grown out of control.
I believe these numbers are true and that most Americans do not think anything is wrong with downloading songs and music. The industries will have a fit about this, slap more lawsuits on our hands, encrypt all their content, and raise prices slowly over the next few years. but this is a democracy. we vote. and the vote has been taken. has anyone stopped to consider that if the majority of Americans dont believe its wrong, then it should not be against the law? when the majority of Americans decided that Prohibition was wrong, they stopped making that the law. live and learn. we cant keep a law against everyones wishes just to protect a dying bussiness. The world will not end, it will simple change.
Question
http://www.ironfroggy.com/
Yeah, I agree with this. Really, 7% unemployment was considered a good number to balance growth and inflation. Many (most?) economists didn't (don't) think that less than that can be had for a sustained time period, would agree that we got lucky and are just settling down from an overheated economy anyway.
The recording industry isn't quite in its last throes that I can tell, despite what I hear from even the lowest minions of the industry. It's hard to argue "dying!" or "killed by napster!" when they had record profits in the height of the napster "crisis". Even if there is financial trouble, it's probably high time for a reworking of the business, which most industries probably has gone through at least every 20 years for the last century!
While we're at it, can we make Porsches and large yachts free too? I want them! It's my right as an American citizen to have them for free!
"75% of all statistics are wrong."
I don't get one thing...
If 9% think what they do it's illegal, why don't they simply stop?!
__________
Don't belong. Never join. Think for yourself. Peace!
Just like the scat-porn loving eurotrash don't think that there is anything wrong with giving murderous dictators weapons of mass destruction.
Amorality pervades US society from the Presidents to thieving downloading pre-teens. First we have a president that does know what adultery is. No we have one that wants to start war at a drop of a hat. No wonder the rest of society is confused.
First, the idea of stealing something is controversial, it depends how you define it. I personally define stealing as taking something that someone has, or taking something that someone WILL have in the future as a payment (ie. cash) for something they did now or in the present. I know there are exceptions to this, but use some common sense. Secondly, the idea of whether stealing is right or wrong is another controversy. I personally believe that it isn't wrong if you weren't planning to buy whatever it was anyway, whether it be a crappy video game or a $10,000 3D rendering application that you could never afford. However, if it is something that you can afford, and also like or are using it on a regular basis, then I think it would be wrong to not buy it. An example of this is if you got a pirated version of a good video game, if you like it, then I believe you should go out and buy it, more so as a gratuity for making such a good game. The same applies to softare you can actually afford, like Nero or some of those cheaper apps, and not like the Professional Apps like Photoshop (not the LE version, which lacks almost everything and those trial/learning versions that put watermarks, and sort of ruin your hobbyist creations). My whole opinion on this, more specifically music is that I do believe that some of these artists are getting ripped off. There are people who download their MP3's and don't have their CD's nor do they plan to buy their CD's.
If you don't let other people download, you're just taking. Not sharing : P
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I prefer to own my own CDs. I really do. i like having the actual CDs, I like having the liner notes. And then I rip them to MP3 and put them on my computer, but as CD prices and bandwidth have gone down in prices over the past 5 years, and CD prices have stayed the same or gone up, I have become pissed off. For what reason does a CD cost more than a tape. A CD is by far cheaper to make than a tape, but yet they choose to sell us a 15 cent product for 15$. And that's after Ticketmaster charged us, 50$ for bad seats at a concert, and price gouged us 45$ for a T-shirt. Screw the music industry, screw bands that make one hit album and get paid millions for it, they dance and sing, nothing more, I don't think they should be making ten times what doctors who save our lives make. I truly believe that if CD prices were more reasonable, more people would by their own CDs but they price fixed the market, then jacked up prices horribly. There never would have been this p2p craze and all the effort it took to develop it, if music companies weren't ripping people off.
Anonymous Cowards - Oh God, How I hate you
A kneejerk reaction against piracy is going to effect all of us (who don't pirate) in ways we can not even imagine atm.
;)
Agreed. Canada (and other countries) are already exacting huge fees for blank CDs, on the basis (expressed more sweetly) that the purchasers are using them to illegally copy music anyhow. (And even though I disagree with their motives and means, there is a certain truth to it -- too bad that's the part that gets blown up and written into law.)
I recommend Henry Hazlitt's book Economics in One Lesson (fair warning, I have one more chapter to read; maybe he advocates baby-eating in the last few pages). It's old and definitely *not* specifically about Music Industry Industrial Policy, but it bears relevance
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
You're a fucking moron
Those who would trade liberty for security deserve neither.
-Thomas Jefferson
Another stat, 73% of US downloaders report that their motivation for trading was to sample music for later purchase...
I'm sorry, but that is BS. Granted most people would like to sample music before they buy, and many probably do this. BUT, this is definitely not the primary motivation for downloading music. The primary motivation is more likely to build up their MP3 collection. I always was amazed at how many people bragged about their Gigs and Gigs of music files. These folks ALWAYS listened to their music directly from their computers too. If they didn't have cars, they might never even listen to CDs at all. And this isn't uncommon. I'm not actually saying that those taking the survey were lying. It is completely truthful to say that I download music to sample before I buy. But, it is certainly not the main reason for doing it. I believe most people feel obliged to say this on the survey- because it helps the cause. If you download music just for listening from your computer with no intent to buy, you aren't going to admit that to the record industries (AKA surveys), because that would give them reasons to stop you from doing what you are currently enjoying.
In short, surveys can oftentimes contain loaded questions designed to manipulate the results. I believe this is one of them.
which is known to cause physical harm when accidents occurs is comparable to swapping bits over high-speed lines? Bullshit.
if the television broadcasts come through my air and I have bought an antenna, I'm watching for free. If the cable signal comes into my home and I pay for that service, but the wire carries scrambled signals which I can view because I know how to descramble the signal, I'm watching that for free too. I suggest you improve your scrambling technique if you expect me to pay.
If you put something on the Internet and I can get to it, either because you provide it for free or you don't know how to exclude read permissions on the source directories for your files, I'm going to d/l them if I feel like it.
And I ain't gonna feel one bit guilty about it, neither.
If you had argued that musicians have a right to make money off their work
They don't have any more right to make money than the record companies. They simply have the right to attempt to use their talent to make money including being able to freely enter into contracts for performances and recordings.
I wouldn't buy any of the shite I download, so nobody is losing any money with me.....
Lets look at it with the "Back To The Future analogy" (at her request I took my wife to go see Willard, starring Crispin Glover... who played George McFly in BttF) which goes something like this:
Biff = Saddam Hussien
Marty McFly = George W. Bush.
George McFly & other wimps = "rest of world"
Biff goes aound terrorizing (!) George, causing general havoc. George grows up cowing to Biff, and eventually goes to work for him. George grows old in fear of Biff. That is, until Marty goes back to 1955 and changes things.
Marty shows George that he can, and indeed must, stand up to Biff. At the end of the movie we see what a glass tiger Biff really is-- one punch from the underweight highschool loser George McFly knocks him cold.
Upon returning to "present day" 1985, Marty finds the world a very different place. His parents are no longer losers-- his dad cowering at biff and his mother an overweight chain smoker. Nope-- his parents in this alternate reality "grow up" to be vibrant, active and fearless. Biff, on the other hand, is given his come-uppance: he's outside waxing Marty's new truck!
The moral of the story: people never realize their true potential while cowering in the shadows of bullies. They must stand up to the bullies and defeat them in order to be all they can be.
Is everyone that dense?! It's a Simpsons quote! It's meant to be funny and/or ironic! It's not supposed to be taken seriously! Please shut up already!!
In record stores you usually have the option of previewing music (in the kiosks) before you buy. You aren't obligated to buy the cd once you are finished. Downloading an mp3 to sample it is the same thing. If I download a song, check it out, hate it, then delete it. I wouldn't have bought it anyways so what's the problem?
www.samuraidreams.com - My Blog
www.samuraifiles.com - Get Some Videos Here
Any music service I have found online expects me to use either some proprietary format with DRM or mp3s. My entire music collection was ripped from my CDs to ogg format. My OS doesn't even support mp3s anymore. Until the music industry can offer me something worth buying how can they expect me to continue to pay for music? I have enough commercial music and there's plenty of free music available, it just doesn't get advertised as much, cuz its free.
Besides, my time could be better spend learning how to play music or publish my own stuff. That's free these days, too.
As a musician with copyrighted works, you should spend some time informing yourself better about copyrights. It is actually LEGAL to give away copies of your music, as long as they are not sold and not part of any business (handed out as door prizes, available from a site with banner ads, available only with software purchased from Napster, etc.)
The whole text of Title 17 is available online. If you read the preambles of each section and then focus on the music section, it doesn't take that long to work through -- just sit down with a friend, a printout, close to an internet connection to google stuff, and go through it marking up the margins.
It is because people never do this that we have a such a fucked up legal situation in this country. Legal myths and rumours run rampant, and laws unread by the very lawmakers who passed them contradict other laws and the constitution, also unread.
i'm not sure what i'm getting at (especially with that last one...)
I think what you're getting at is something along the lines of 'Legal Issues Don't Bother American Criminals'. This is music, not heroin, if it bothered people, they'd stop, simple as that. Stating the obvious is a waste of time. At least, that's what I got.
--Dan
The Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 (enacted by the US Congress) states the following:
" SUBCHAPTER D. PROHIBITION ON CERTAIN INFRINGEMENT ACTIONS,
REMEDIES, AND ARBITRATION
Section 1008. Prohibition on certain infringement actions
No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of
copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a
digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an
analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the
noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making
digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings."
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
Your problem with mp3 quality is related to a bad network. Try a better network instead - Ubernet comes strongly recommended for top quality.
Admittedly, you may find more success in a larger, more random quality network such as Fasttrack for sheer quantity when trying out new music more or less at random, but don't expect quality, just quantity.
We need strong release signatures! Let cryptographic signatures ensure that releases are untampered with and complete, and let reputation of psuedonyms speak for itself!
And hence the huge majority who refuse to see this as theft.
Actually, the majority did support it.
And don't forget, the majority removed prohibition through an even clearer vehicle than the elected government.
The 21st amendment is the only amendment to the US. Constitution to be drafted through the "voter caucus" method.
Good. The sooner the mainstream music industry go out of business, the better.
I don't want to debate the legality of the downloading issue. I just want to point out one thing. The sharing of files ( programs specifically ) acts as a leveling agent for people of different wealths for they're ability to gain computer skills beyond the basics. It used to be that you had to have money to use a computer. Now computers are relatively cheap. With a computer and cheap internet connection, you can download all the programs that anyone else has (almost). Personally, I don't download files, but I have "a friend" who does. He gained experience with *ahem* popular graphics software and other software that gained skills necessary for competing in today's workforce...especially with the crappy economy right now. Make your own judgements about whether this is right/wrong or good/bad or an necessary/unnecessary evil.
All of this info is available at the LOC Copyright Office [copyright.gov]. One would think that on a tech-savvy site such as this, such misinformation would stop being so glibly circulated. I guess one would be wrong.
;)
Totally wrong!
This goes to my other point- people are just lazy. even worse, are the would-be-knowitalls - who think they know what they are talking about, but in reality don't. I am of that group. Does that make me qualified to be a manager?
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
It's good to see another Macross Plus fan out there. Yoko Kanno is a goddess and deserves our worship.
shrugs.
I submit to you that when 99% of the population drives at a safe and efficient speed for the given road they are on, and that speed has a tendency to be above the posted "limit", then that makes the limit itself wrong.
That is the definition of how a democracy functions.
Unfortunately, we do not live in one.
Well, you're not alone. So 91% think that what they're doing is right? These people are WRONG. Worse than that, they are delusional. Just because you are not likely to be caught doing something wrong doesn't make it OK! In this country we live by a thing called laws, and when you break a law, you are WRONG. If you feel you have no obligation to obey and follow the law, you are a scofflaw. And a scofflaw is one of the lowest types of disreputable persons to me. If the people of the US pass a federal law saying downloading copyrighted material without paying for it is legal, then it will become a law in the US. But this is a matter of not only US law but international law. So when the majority of countries in the world pass laws and ratify an international treaty saying that downloading copyrighted material without paying for it is legal, then it will be legal and it will be a law. Until then, it is illegal, it is a crime, and the people that are doing it are scofflaw scum.
Piracy is illegal. Almost everyone knows that.
But most people don't think piracy is wrong, and they are correct. Piracy is the one method consumers have at their disposal to balance a market tightly controlled by a small handful of large producers. In the absence of true competition among a plethora of producers, piracy is the only way for consumer needs to factor into the equation.
Many people who put down pirates often say, "If you don't like the prices/terms/whatever that the producers are offering, then just don't buy their products!" Unfortunately, that only works when viable alternative products are being offered by other producers at different prices/terms. Consumers still want or need to obtain the goods, so if there's only one producer (or one small group of producers all colluding together), then piracy is the only viable solution.
Also, it should be noted that piracy and theft are not the same. Piracy does not remove a physical unit of good from the producer, and piracy does not usually deprive the producer of a unit of sale, since that person receiving the pirated copy wouldn't have bought the product anyway (that's why they're out there trying to pirate it -- they can't afford to purchase it legitimately).
This isn't a new issue, either. It's been debated in the software industry for years. Adobe Photoshop is priced at several hundred dollars, which is well beyond the means of most people who need the product for personal use. Since Adobe (stupidly) fails to offer the same product at a more reasonable price to individual consumers for non-profit use, but the need for the product still exists, people pirate it. And this is a good thing, because it allows the people who need it but obviously can't afford it to still get it -- without physically detracting from the producer's goods, and without creating a "lost sale" for the producer (since the consumer wouldn't have purchased it anyway).
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
Well, I hate to break up your analogy, but I don't have time to make a posting to continue the BTTF comparisons.
Here's the thing:
During the '80's, Saddam/Iraq obtained germ cultures from a firm in Virginia, with the blessings of the Reagan/Bush White House. That's what was removed from the Iraqi declarations lat year before the U.S. in turn handed them over to the U.N. We gave the "bully" his toys.
Wolfowitz et al had no problem with Saddam gassing Iraqis and Kurds in the 80's. There is a famous picture floating around of Wolfy shaking hands with Saddam a couple of months after he knew damned well Saddam had committed mass murder.
In '88, the U.N. attempted to pass a resolution demanding the investigation of Saddam's gas attacks against helpless civilians. The resolution was blocked by -- wait for it.... --- the veto of the U.S. in the Security Council.
Ironic, eh?
Reagan/Bush equipped and gave aid and comfort to Saddam because he was fighting the Iranians. This is fact. The same people are in Bush's White House. Fact. Another fact: they don't want anyone to remember that past. Their hands are covered with the same blood they denounce on Saddam.
We have delusions about our past: the rest of the world does not. The WH press corps has reliquished its responsiblity to question the President in any meaningful way. We do not receive accurate news coverage of our appointed President's actions: the rest of the world does.
When Saddam WAS acting the bully, he was our guy, and we didn't care. When he attacked our oil supply, he became the enemy. But he was always pathetic and helpless against any real enemy. He can't touch us, and has never shown any inclination to commit suicide by doing so.
We have become the world's only superpower. But instead of being a force for sanity and law, we've gone rogue.
We are oppressing and silencing dissent, at all levels, from our inability to wear T-shirts which oppose Bush to Bush himself holding "press conference" at which only selected reporters could ask pre-approved questions, with Carl Rove front and center maintaining a checklist, controlling the event. This is beyong bullying -- this is totalitarianism pretending to be what it used to be -- a democracy.
We have insulted and manipulated our allies into being the fall guys for our failure to make a sane argument for invading a helpless and non-threatening enemy.
We have news coverage tut-tutting "anti-American" protestors in the U.S. and around the world. An incredible, egregious lie: the protestors are anti-Bush, not anti-American. This is memetic bullying. We have bullied away all the incredible solidarity we had after 9-11. All the good will.
We have told the world we will blow up anything and anyone we want to, at any time. We have informed the world we will use nukes if we want to.
We have told the world that we will torture if we want to. That the Geneva convention no longer applies to our prisoners.
We have told the world that they can go to commie hell if they want us to sign environmental treaties.
We have told the world we no longer need the U.N.
We have told the world that we don't need the Brits to invade Iraq. Britons are understandably pissed off that even they who have supported us are crap in the eyes of the radical right.
We have told the world that we don't care what happens to international diplomacy.
We are the U.S., and people who oppose us (Bush/God) are commies, lesbos, godless, old Europeans, environmentalist pro-press whack jobs.
If Turkey won't take a bribe, then we will cut off their aid. I doubt Bush knows we hardly give any foreign aid compared to the rest of the world, and that Turkey won't miss us much. But it is the act of a bully.
We (Bush) have made it known we will punish economically anyone who opposes us. He is seemingly oblivious to the fact that our economy, via the money he borrows from abroad to pay for our tax cuts and mil
I am really tired of people using "Most people I know..." as the basis for an argument. I am seeing this a lot, especially in articles such as this one. When someone says "most people do/are ...", they are more often than not basing that statement on the people that they know, assuming that the people they know is an accurate enough sample to represent the majority.
Also, since people tend to associate themselves with similar people, the entire argument becomes invalid.
20 years from now people will look back at your comment and wonder just WTF you were thinking.
I pay to connect to the internet. I don't consider any of the data I transfer to be "wrong" in any sense of the word.
Example of an Iraqi ballot: ______________ Do you want Saddam Hussein to remain leader of Iraq? -Yes -No _________ Iraqi citizens were also "encouraged" to vote using blood from their thumbs.
According to a story on Cnet's News, this isn't really a stretch at all. http://news.com.com/2100-1025-992471.html
"'John Netherland, the acting director of the Department of Homeland Security's CyberSmuggling Center, said his office would focus more closely on P2P networks. The center already is "expanding its investigative efforts to encompass this new technology,' Netherland said. 'Evidence is easily captured and preserved on a real-time basis...for these reasons peer-to-peer file-sharing investigations are likely to increase.'"
Department of Homeland Security??? Sorry, don't think I'm ever going to vote for a Democrat or a Republican. Theres a very big, very dark line between murdering innocent people and Kazaa. If you don't think there is, your either fucking nuts, or really really gullible. What else can you say?
No offense, but perhaps they miss this "point" because it's a crock of shit.
I'm a jazz musician, and journalist. You're right: Pop music is repetitive. (Being "repetitive" is actually kind of the point of pop music, but we'll set that aside for the moment.) Most of it is also garbage. 16-year-old children, even with admittedly good voices, record their own poorly-written crap (Debbie Gibson notwithstanding) and are rewarded with national circulation. And somebody, PLEASE...explain Macy Gray.
But let's be clear: Any decline in CD sales is despite this truth, not because of it. Check the playlists on P2P, next time you're surfing. Eminem, Britney Spears...people aren't turning to P2P because they want to be turned onto new, engaging music. They use it because it's free. On this point, the record industry is 100% right. People use P2P, for the most part, to listen to the exact same crap that's on the radio.
When the public becomes "bored and disinterested" with "bland" and "repetitive" music, then Bob Brookmeyer won't have to turn to Dutch labels to record his music. Rap fans will learn about J-Live, and they'll forget about DMX. Rock fans will hear bands like Don Caballero and Shipping News, and schmucks like that Andrew-somebody-or-other won't be able to find work at McDonald's.
Don't take my word for it. When the record labels -- the folks who really study this data -- saw their sales figures starting to decline, what was the first thing they cut? Jazz. Almost completely. Classical? Most people think, "Mozart," "Bach"...and on the rare occasions when they're in the market for a classical CD, you'd better have those two on-hand; because they're not interested in Ligeti or Lutoslawski. If you really believe that the general public is even remotely "bored" by the same-old, same-old, then you're kidding yourself. It's a dream world I'd like to live in, but it just ain't so.
crib
Please don't read my journal
The notion that an author has a right to a profit is a falatious notion. Copyright is purely a social contract in which I give up my natural rights of free speech to ensure that ideas are made available to the public. Creators have no right to profit, just like manufacturors have no right to profit. It's thier job to earn that profit. Copyright is not designed to ensure profit, but rather to provide an incentive. They only have an (artificial) right to control thier creations so long as they live up to thier half of the social contract. Furthermore, if less content is produced as a result of copyright violation, it is me, as a fellow member of society who has had my rights violated, not the content creator. This is a very subtle point, and I may not have expressed it well, but I guess what I'm trying to say is: Copyright is a mechanism designed to achieve the goal of wide disemmination of ideas. There is no goal of providing compensation to creators, that is simply a mechanism by which the goal is achieved.
That's exactly what I was trying to get at, you just said it a lot more succinctly. :)
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
While it is true that the group containing all women is not the same as the media conglomerates, the two sets that I was talking about are completely disjoint, and not the ones that you are considering. I'm fairly certain that Hillary Rosen was not part of the women's sufferage movement around the 1920's. Everyone who was must be about 100 years old by now.
The post that I was objecting to was insinuating that a vocal minority caused prohibition just as a vocal minority will cause the restriction of file trading.
And of course, if you look at my context, I was speaking specifically of "women who where for sufferage" when I was speaking of women in America. I'm sure that there were plenty of women who weren't involved in this movement, but that is STILL irrelevant. I was pointing out that this was a very LARGE group, not a small minority, as the media conglomerates are. It doesn't specifically matter that these are women. They could have been martians. The importance is that they are a large group, and thats why they changed things.
In short, when gender politics has been an issue, it should be observed, and one's mind should not be clouded by preconceptions that any gender-related statements are inherenly sexist.
As far as dividing the world into opposing camps of "corporations" and "everyone else," since your argument doesn't make sense in light of mine, I fail to see your reasoning, especially because you have not adequetely shown why the fact that the set containing women and the set containing members of conglomerates is not disjoint is relevant. Sometimes it is "corporations" versus "everyone else," where everyone else contains all those who are opressed by corporate politics. Otherwise, we would never have started using expressions like "Robber Barons" to describe "Captians of Industry."
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
Point of order, sir.
That quote was Ben Franklin, not Thomas Jefferson.
And it went "Those who would sacrifice essential liberties for temporary safety deserve neither freedom nor safety."
Be sure of your facts before you call someone a fucking moron, otherwise you may turn out to be what you mock.
Are you spouting off again wheatwhacker? Answer me this -- if 91% of the population is doing something "BAD" aren't they in the majority?
If 91% of people wanted a President in office -- he would be elected.
If 91% of the people wanted to create a federal holiday -- there would be a new holiday.
AND.....
If 91% of people wanted to download MP3s -- wouldn't it follow that the law should be changed to match the wishes of the MAJORITY?
91% is the MAJORITY!!!!!
ok, i'm not sure what i'm getting at (especially with that last one...), but it's something along the lines of "law doesn't equal ethics." you can buy a law, but Leges sine moribus vanae ("Laws without morals are useless.")
It's more like Lex dubia non obligat...
Let me say that again. CONTROL.
Starting from left field: The Russian mob makes millions of dollars from so-called "piracy." They produce illegal copies of CDs, DVDs, software, etc., and they sell them on the black market. Some of you may recall this concern being publicized when Nintendo was designing the GameCube; because it caused the design team to shift to a smaller-sized DVD, in order to make bootlegging more difficult.
Bootlegging is illegal for the same reasons as is "free" P2P. Everyone knows the first reason: Illegal distribution competes with legitimate distribution, and legitimate sales are lost to the black market. But that reason is simply a consequence of the underlying issue, which is often overlooked by those defending P2P: Control. By up- and downloading other artist's music, you are violating that artist's right to control distribution of his own work.
Y'all say, "Well, everyone knows that increased distribution helps the artist." And in many cases, you're right. But that fact notwithstanding, copyright law assures an artist an absolute right to control distribution. And that's as it should be. If an artist doesn't want to be "helped," he should have that right.
Any artist's reasons for limiting distribution are, of course, none of your damn business. But just for the sake of argument: An artist has the right to produce only 100 copies of a record, and feel assured that its distribution will not exceed that number. A young musician, in need of a demo, has the right to say, "I only own a cheap eight-track, and one microphone. So I'll dash something off, quickly, and give it to the club owners...but I won't have to worry about anyone else hearing it. I'll have a chance to put my best foot forward, when I decide the time is right." Likewise, an older musician, newly discovering success, has the right to feel assured that the shoddy recording he made in his basement in 1963 won't rear its head in stores and MP3 lists today, and potentially harm his new career.
J-Live is probably quite happy that his first album, The Best Part, was widely bootlegged and traded. His reputation grew underground, and led directly to his position today: He can tour profitably, he recorded a second album which gained wider distribution, and he even re-released The Best Part. But there's also the mirror image: A young local band sets up in a friend's garage, and walks out with a comically-bad cassette recording of themselves. They scrawl their names on the tape and give it to a friend, who laughs and copies it for a friend...who laughs, and copies it for a friend. Down the line, someone uploads it into KaZaA. Now people on the opposite coast are laughing at a bunch of teenagers who never intended their music for public distribution. Maybe everyone forgets them...or maybe the tape is remembered by a record exec who hears their demo five years later, and he turns them away because of it. Either way, they had the right to control distribution of their music, and that control was violated.
A third time: CONTROL. The issue is not simply distribution, but control of distribution. You might say, "Well, when an artist releases a recording, he has chosen to distribute it." You're right. But he maintains control over that distribution. If he wants to limit that distribution to 100, or 1,000, he has that right. When he sells a copy to you, he is not relinquishing that control -- he is exercising it.
You have the right to buy a copy of the new Britney Spears CD. You have the right to burn copies of that CD for your work and car, if you like. You even have the right to burn 20,000 copies of that CD, and stack them in your bedroom, if that happens to be your fetish. But as soon as you hand one of those copies to another person -- literally, or online -- you have become a "distributor." Whether or not you accept money is irrelevant. You have no right to distribute. And that is the issue.
crib
Please don't read my journal
I get online to download free music samples and free midi files and additionally have my personal purchased CD collection converted to mp3/ogg for my convenience.
What was aggravating was that there was ABSOLUTELY NO WAY TO ANSWER THEIR QUESTIONS ACCURATELY! The survey presupposed that ANY downloading from the net was illegal download of copyrighted material! The way the survey was worded, it wasn't possible to get any accurate view of things. I wish I had a reference to link to, but I can't remember the site.
Has anyone else been a participant in such a survey?
Now, obviously the reality of paying bills hits these artists, but I must say, of the last 10 CDs I have most recently bought, 8 of them were of bands who do not have a record label. The other two are drum and bass compilations. Simply because I can become more personal with those artists, I want to support them. This personal touch, married with the artists' desire for sharing, are a major part of bypassing the record companies.
For what is the purpose of record labels but to spread their music? As technology starts to be more available at home, it becomes easier to do more of the mastering and producing on a home PC. This "home brew" type of recording also helps to identify the group with the "masses". P2P sharing is more than efficient, in fact, it seems that we would have more concern with P2P networks becoming more and more like the record labels.
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
Fair Use allows for time-shifting, not archiving, giving to friends, or shoving it up your ass, sideways, or faceways. Not my opinion - it is the LAW. Honor it or burn in hell forever.
very much in sync with Christian moral law?
If the source of that moral law is the Bible, I see no consistent basis for the prohibition of alcohol... after all, why turn water into wine if no one should drink it?
A bit of an exaggeration, but I am pretty sure the unlimited PC will go the way of cocaine in Coca-Cola in 10 years tops.
Then I'll be part of the digital underground! Whuffies at last! Girls might even talk to me!
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
Catbeller, that was an interesting, fairly well-written post. It was also, in a word, bullshit. Anyone who believes this load of tripe must have slept through history in high school, or was just too stupid to get it. You display precisely the sort of thinking which allowed Hitler to do all the damage he did before we came in and put a stop to it. As an old, lifelong pacifist, I'm not saying our government hasn't made some mistakes in the past... it's made plenty. But at this point, are you really blind enough to believe we have a choice? Try to recognize the difference between a "bully" and a person, or country, who is willing to do what has to be done.
Maybe this has already been said but why not stop having music stores for music cd's anymore? Seems a very wasteful practice. Back in the late 80's when all the record companies tore all the cardboard packaging off the stocks of cd's to place them in jewel case keepers they wasted tons of cardboard or paper. An industry that has flipped formats at least every decade for the last 30-40 years shouldn't continue to be rewarded for excess. Audio cd's are going the way of the 8 track and DVD is on the way. Why doesn't the music industry work out some deal with the movie industry to rent their entire recorded works across the nation. If i can go down to the store and rent the cd for $2 a disc and maybe some special 5 for $5 for older audio discs i might rent one while looking for a movie to rent. It would certainly free up internet bandwith, though people would still download. You could even create entire album cable music channels for subscription. Why not have a cable channel where you can pay as you go. Say $5 per album...maybe a few extras like the making of the album as a movie?? I'm really tired of the recording industrys complete lack of ingenuity and imagination. Where are the artists pushing the boundaries on how music is presented? Mp3's are great for bringing out lost musics and forgotten treasures. This in turn is educated a vast amount of the public and is it any wonder why people could care less about "modern" music that mostly is created for people aged 12-17? People that have very little knowledge about music overall. Could it be that these kids are finding out how lame and useless popular music is and are finding artists on the edges of the underground or historical dustbin?
Amigo, The first piece of pirate software that you should download is a spell-checker.
The reason we aren't able to overturn drug criminalization as we could alcohol prohibition is that the fight on alcohol was only half an attempt to stick it to a particular group or groups (organized crime) and mostly just an attempt to uphold the law. Drug prohibition isn't about taking money away from criminal groups, because if you made just marijuana legal, the amount of money spent on drugs would plummet since any asshole can grow a marijuana plant which will provide tasty smokables. The so-called "war on drugs" (which does look like a war everywhere the US fights it but here, here it just looks like the cops are keeping busy) is purely there to fuel the poverty industry by putting people into the court system (which makes the legal system and its employees money) and then into the prison system (which makes everyone involved money at various levels.) If you think there's anything other than money behind the criminalization of marijuana when cigarettes, quite clearly more dangerous to you and probably to society, are protected by lobbying. Just as big oil has no incentive to promote altfuels, tobacco companies have no incentive to promote marijuana legalization in order to sell the stuff, because anyone can grow and dry it, even if they live in an apartment, which sets it considerably apart from tobacco.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
NEWS - April 1, 2006
Through the Digital Piracy Prevention Act, poor Bobby Smith was sentenced to 45 years in prison without the chance of parole. In his last words before being hauled off to "pound-me-in-the-ass" prison, he said he was sorry and that he never meant to hurt anyone by downloading that song. "I was just trying to get a song for my little sister so I wouldn't have to go buy the $35 album!"
In other news, rapist Jim Wilson, who has been serving 7 years of his 50 year multiple rape conviction, request for parole has been accepted by the court and will be released.
Dude man, it was the fuggin KING, man! Elvis himself. Get yer shit strate!
In '88, the U.N. attempted to pass a resolution demanding the investigation of Saddam's gas attacks against helpless civilians. The resolution was blocked by -- wait for it.... --- the veto of the U.S. in the Security Council.
Ironic, eh?
I don't know why I am posting this since I will no doubt fail to get a response. Why don't you provide the citation for that resolution and an approximate date it was vetoed (or ratified by the GA, or whatever). Then, i will take the train up to the UN myself and pull the document. See, this rogue nation still lets me pay a $1.50 to visit the wonderful UN. Amazing.
You don't have the citation though, because its complete, utter bullshit! Anyway, good troll.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
Under the more obvious understandings of what regulation of interstate commerce meant, the Federal government could have banned alcohol transportation between states, but couldn't ban alcohol manufacture or possession outright, or force uncooperative states to ban it, so the Prohibitionist politicians couldn't achieve the Total World Domination they wanted. They probably could have gotten liquor banned in most of the country for a while, but they probably couldn't have gotten it banned everywhere, or as totally as they wanted (e.g. Demon Rum vs. less-demonic beer), and state lawmakers that banned it when that was popular could later unban it any time 51% of them wanted their booze back. The Amendment gave them the power to make the ban "permanent" and enforce it on everybody.
During the 1930s, the Feds discovered that they could essentially ban things by using excise taxes - first there was the $200 tax on machine guns, which could be 6-12 months' wages for a laborer, and then the Marihuana taxes which were also nearly prohibitionary (but easily evaded), and then the obvious idea that the Feds wouldn't collect the tax or issue receipt stamps, so even if you wanted to pay their extortion you couldn't. And then Roosevelt's takeover of the economy and packing of the Supreme Court let the Feds get away with cases like forbidding a farmer to grow grain on his own land to feed to his own hogs because he'd have otherwise bought that grain on the open market, which is potentially interstate commerce - if you read the Federal drug laws (I think it's Title 10), they start off by asserting that it's difficult to tell where a given batch of drugs comes from, and therefore whether they're involved in Interstate Commerce, and therefore Congress was presuming jurisdiction over all of them. (By the way, that might be a trick that states or cities that want to provide medical marijuana can exploit.)
And since then the Feds have discovered that they can force states to do almost anything using leverage like cutting off all highway funds or other kinds of revenue-sharing if they don't follow the Feds' orders on a wide variety of topics such as requiring drivers' licenses records to collect Social Security Numbers.
It'll be a long hard climb out of this hole we're in.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
1. UN Doc. Sym.: S/20151
Issuing Body/Session: Issuing Body: S/ Session: 43
Modtitle: Draft resolution [on chemical weapons use in the conflict between Iran (Islamic Republic of) and Iraq]
Title: Draft resolution / Germany, Federal Republic of, Italy, Japan and United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Imprint: [New York] : UN, 26 Aug. 1988.
Description: 2 p.
Author/Contributors: Germany, Federal Republic of Italy Japan United Kingdom
Notes: Concerns chemical weapons use in the conflict between Iraq and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Subjects: ARMED CONFLICTS IRAN (ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF) IRAQ CHEMICAL WEAPONS USE CHEMICAL WEAPONS CHEMICALS BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS TOXIC SUBSTANCES EXPORT RESTRICTIONS INTERNATIONAL OBLIGATIONS DISARMAMENT AGREEMENTS INTERNATIONAL LAW Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare (1925)
Agenda Info.:
Agenda: S/43 Item: [8] - - IRAN (ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF)--IRAQ -
Type of Material: Resolutions and decisions (UN) -- Draft B02
Distribution: GEN
Location: Dag Hammarskjöld Library
Collection: UN docs (English)-symbol
Call No.: S/20151
Status: Checked In
Learn from the mistakes of others. There isn't enough time to make them all yourself.
We have told the world that we don't need the Brits to invade Iraq. Britons are understandably pissed off that even they who have supported us are crap in the eyes of the radical right.
... that Kuwait is not associated with America." I don't believe that this was merely a miscommunication. You don't get to be an ambassador or Cabinet member without a long history of effective and successful communication.
It is not a matter of Right and Left. I am one of those whom you'd probably see as a part of the so called "radical right" (there is no such thing, but that is another discussion. With a few minor disagreements, I concur with you as it relates to this war.
When Saddam WAS acting the bully, he was our guy, and we didn't care. When he attacked our oil supply, he became the enemy. But he was always pathetic and helpless against any real enemy. He can't touch us, and has never shown any inclination to commit suicide by doing so.
To be honest, I don't believe that was it. The US had the opportunity to stop Saddam's invasion of Kuwait before it happened. Saddam was accusing Kuwait of stealing BILLIONS of dollars worth of oil from the oil reserve that lies beneath the border of both countries. He threatened to invade them for months, and the Iraqis were told by April Glaspie (the US ambassador to Iraq) "We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary [of State James] Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction
We have told the world that we will torture if we want to. That the Geneva convention no longer applies to our prisoners.
To be fair, the US's idea of torture and the Iraqi idea of torture are light years apart. For the US torture is taping someone's eyelids open and exposing him to a strobe light, or tying him to a board and dumping a glass of water on his face a few times per minute. All of that aside, the biggest motivator of prisoners is to offer them passage to the US. "Hey, do you like steak? If you work with us, we can make sure that you get steak twice a week, if not we'll keep you awake for a solid week. Either way, we'll get what we want. The question is what do YOU want?"
We have told the world that they can go to commie hell if they want us to sign environmental treaties.
Don't forget that the current administration is ignoring the Salt II treaty with its missile sheild.
We have told the world we no longer need the U.N.
We (those of us on the so called 'far right') have been saying that for close to a decade.
We (Bush) have made it known we will punish economically anyone who opposes us.
Well, that is fair. In this country we boycott businesses at the drop of a hat. For most of the world, there is no greater motivator than the green stuff.
He is seemingly oblivious to the fact that our economy, via the money he borrows from abroad to pay for our tax cuts and military expansion, is financed by foreign investors. He thinks he can be a bully, but he is about to learn that he is, in fact, a beggar and a fool who is about to learn that he is NOT God's representive on Earth.
You are correct, on a small scale economic sanctions work wonderfully, but we are not a rich enough country to threaten the entire the globe.
I regret that I had to hold my nose and vote for GW in 2000, and even more I regret the fact that I will have to do so again in 2004.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano