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Aussie Music Industry Sues ISP Over Filesharing
An anonymous reader writes "In what is believed to be the first case of its kind in the world, the Australian music industry has listed an Internet service provider (ISP) as a respondent in a court case involving music piracy. The ISP is being sued for 'profiting' (by hosting it) from a site which distributes copyright-infringing material."
And here I was thinking that only in the US did we have asinine shit like this being flung... I don't know whether to be encouraged or discouraged to see that we aren't alone.
#define DRM chmod 000
Google Cache
I have over 70 freaks, do you?
We don't see that because the DMCA limit's ISPs of liability.
Massive networking attempt for friends
But they had it in the Private IP address space... Yes they natted me. (wisp) They never advertised That They did have it. They had divx movies, divx tv shows, and Mp3's. They even had software, I got msn office off it.. (Yes I warezed it, Now I don't have it installed I use OpenOffice. In fact I deleted it)
Did this isp advertise they had it?
I can't read the article since It seems to be slashdoted.. (ZDnet?)
Does anyone else's isp Do such a thing. Just wondering.
Whom does the Australian "RIAA" represent? Is Kylie Minogue under the Aussie RIAA or the one we know and hate (which represents all the major labels).
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
If the ISP hosts, say, an Al Qaeda site, can they then be held responsible for "profiting" from terrorism?
With all the publicity pumped up by the RIAA and the MPAA, is it any surprise that media companies around the world would start to do the same?
Still, I'm not sure I agree that the ISP is "profiting" from the hosting of copyrighted material on one of its user's homepages. It may be allowing it, but there's no commercial gain whatsoever.
for those who haven't RTFA:
Read the rest online.
"Einstein argued that [...] God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer." ~ Brooks
The primary reason why CD sales has dropped is not about cost. I'm sure even teenagers would be prepared to spring the $1 or two to buy the few songs that they really like.
It comes down to convenience. They want instant gratification, and P2P file sharing lets them have it.
Online music services will change this in the near future, though.
"Smoking helps you lose weight - one lung at a time" -- A. E. Neumann
I'm sueing my city for building a road that allowed the thief who stole my car to get away.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
I have read many comments on /. about copyright, pro and contra, but I think RMS hit the nail on its head with his Reevaluating Copyright:
The copyright system developed along with the printing press. In the age of the printing press, it was unfeasible for an ordinary reader to copy a book. Copying a book required a printing press, and ordinary readers did not have one. What's more, copying in this way was absurdly expensive unless many copies were made--which means, in effect, that only a publisher could copy a book economically.
So when the public traded to publishers the freedom to copy books, they were selling something which they *could not use*. Trading something you cannot use for something useful and helpful is always good deal. Therefore, copyright was uncontroversial in the age of the printing press, precisely because it did not restrict anything the reading public might commonly do.
But the age of the printing press is gradually ending. The xerox machine and the audio and video tape began the change; digital information technology brings it to fruition. These advances make it possible for ordinary people, not just publishers with specialized equipment, to copy. And they do!
I think the musicians have to perform live as they had to do a hundred years ago and as many musicians have to do now (except the so called stars). The era to become rich by selling millions of CDs without any real work is over.
Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer. - Ludwig von Mises
"Seriously, what does the music industry hope to accomplish through action like this?"
At first, control of who listens to what, when, how often, on what equipment.
Ultimately, control of who is able to produce entertainment at the quality expectations of the current state of the art.
The music industry folks really like it when everyone in an entire country has tastes that fall into one of a few precisely defined categories. You're doing a fine job of this, good work citizens!
They don't care much for a situation where people have regional tastes, or where they make their own music.
I would personally like to see the plan backfire. Instead of building a system of control under which everyone is a good consumer and buys what the industry allows to be produced, I'd like to see millions of people say, the hell with the industry and the music they want me to listen to, and we can return to regional styles. I have a piano, and much skill for playing it, so I make music for my own enjoyment. If that spirit were widespread, like it used to be, there would again be different styles of music for different places, instead of everybody listening to the same thing, stuff becoming popular, BECAUSE it's popular, that sort of thing.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
I really liked this part:
This evening, my daughters asked me. "Why do the other kids laugh at us?"
I wanted to tell them the truth - it's because they wear old clothes and have cheap haircuts. I can't afford anything better for them right now.
"It's because they are idiots, kids", I told them. "Don't listen to them."
Your post was great, I was laughing so hard it brought tears to my eyes. You are the reason I read comments at -1.
Auto manufacturers profit when their cars are bought by drug dealers for the purpose of smuggling drugs. Handgun makers profit when someone buys their gun and uses it in a murder. Gardening stores profit when a customer buys large quantities of fertilizer, makes a bomb, and blows up large federal buildings in Oklahoma City.
Should the auto manufacturer, handgun maker, and gardening store be legally liable for the crimes of their customers? Should they even be responsible for following their customers around to make sure they do nothing illegal?
that's it's one thing to be an individual downloading music and stuff, and another being a commercial entity profitting from piracy.
If Aussie ISPs stop file sharing does this mean now I will have to pay for all the beautiful Rolf Harris tunes? Or will I need to order my Didgerydoodoo music through A&B sound? Mate its gettin' hard to get good music anymore!
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
I once bought a pirated CD in a pub, can the landlord be sued?
Actually, thinking further... if I didn't work then I couldn't afford to buy the pirate CD so surely my employer is ultimately responsible, after all they gave me the money to commit this foul act... I'm going to sue my employer for making me a criminal!!!
Or, should I quit my job, become unemployed, claim state benefits, buy a pirate CD and then sue the government?!?!?
When will people learn, the internet is neither inherently good nor evil... it's just a new medium... if kids weren't inside on their PC's pirating CD's they'd be out in the playground trading CDR's stuffed full of music... you gonna sue the school at that point?
I want ARIA to try and sue Telstra/BigPond for profiting from supply of the underlying capacity, and knowingly allowing their users to file swap.
Who would win? (Googlefight predicts aria, but maybe becuase fo their big award ceremony last night)
PS: Telstra has been close to "busted" before for tapping phones of customers who complained about them. So don't think they are a bunch of wimps who woould not fight.
The Singularity is closer than you think
Quant
A few months ago I looked into running a peercast strem of local original music from my city (Canberra, Australia).
One thing that struck me when I put out a call for interest was the willingness of local ISP's to host nodes.
Bear in mind the project was intended to be totally legit and din't proceed because too many of the local artists were already signed up by the copyright agency APRA.
Anything that makes people download more is in the ISP's interest if they've worked their cost base out properly.
Having said that the ones I spoke to were entirely conditional on the feed being unencumbered.
I've had no dealings with this mob so can't comment on their motivations.
'There is a Light that never goes out.'
Now, in my opinion, the way to curtail piracy is by giving the customer something. And by something, I don't mean 9 shitty songs with the same beat, different lyrics, all of which rhyme with love or fire, and that lasts for half an hour, for $20. I mean truly adding value to a purchase. For example, Marilyn Manson's The Golden Age Of Grotesque and ATB's Addicted to Music. I ripped the MP3's from a friend, listened, and once I got some money, bought the CDs. I could have very well just never got the CD's, but I did. First, while I know it won't make a difference to these two groups, I do feel they are worth supporting. I do the same with NIN and Zombie and a few others. Like the music or not, at least it's not the same recycled shit for the 143853092847th time. Secondly, the actual value of these CDs. Both CD's cost something around $16-20 when I got them. Both have 13 songs, so about a $1.25 or so a song. Both last at least an hour (1.2 in ATB's case). Both include lyrics (for songs that need it), which is an absolute rarity these days. Jesus, for $20, I at least expect to be able to get lyrics, but most groups/"artists" just give me a picture and some credits thanking god, their boyfriend, producers, etc. Both CD's also have some decent pictoral work. And, both come with a DVD that has videos/documentries on it. So good music, LYRICS (I really, really hate no lyrics), A DVD!!!, and some pretty pictures, for less then the cost of the latest from Britany (your prices/milage may vary).
So, what did we learn today class?
- If you can't get blood from a turnip, might as well sue the ground the turnip grows in for its delicious, abundent neutrients.
- To avoid piracy, give us something worth buying. Yeah, piracy is technically wrong, but so fucking what? We refuse to pay $20 for a shitty CD to get 2 songs that aren't available on a single. (Which is why iTunes does so well, but that's another post).
- Lyrics, at least give us lyric inserts. And a DVD with some videos or something never hurt.
Class is over. Now get the hell out and do something productive.Request: ECM unit, 1000 km fullerene cable, 1 tactical nuclear weapon. Reason: Birthday party for foreign dignitary.
It's the Australian site (.com.au) which may not be able to withstand the bandwidth required. I'm sure that zdnet would though.
Video Game cheats, hints a
I was just wondering... based on the logic being presented by the plaintiffs, would AT&T be held responsible in court if I played my MP3s to friends over the phone while they listened in a giant conference call?
I actually went to the site that is the cause of all this: www.mp3s4free.net and found that it doesn't even appear to be hosting pirated music. It is simply searchable database of mp3 files that are hosted elsewhere on the Internet. It looks primarily like the site is profiting from capturing email addresses and advertising rather than from the music itself.
What I was quite impressed about was that the site is still up. Many ISPs would have killed the site straight away - assuming guilt rather than innocence. My site is also hosted with Comcen and they seem to be a good bunch.
"In my experience investigating the revenue structure of Web sites such as [mp3s4free.net] the ISP hosting the Web site, [Com-cen], stands to benefit economically from the increased consumption of bandwidth that would result from an increase in the flow of traffic to the Web site and an increase in the number of sound recordings downloaded by visitors to the Web site due to the large size of music files," Speck's affadavit.
The way this dumbass words it, it sounds like he's saying the ISP is making big bucks because of all the increase in traffic the illegal files generate. No, that would cost them big bucks. The only way an ISP would be making a profit in this situation is if they were getting paid by the website. In which case, how is this different than any other ISP customer using his connection to upload warez or music or whatever?
I mean, either the ISP is benefitting from all the downloads, which makes them part of this, or they are just providing a service to a customer who can then use it for good or bad like anyone else.
To put it another way, it's like suing Comcast because they know that the only people who pay for broadband are the people who want to illegally download music and movies. If they didn't want illegal downloads, they wouln't need broadband. And god knows, anyone who pays for increased upload speed is surely a pirate!
Seriously, this is the stupidest case argument I've heard in quite some time. Even if Australia doesn't have any kind of DMCA ISP-shield or (highly unlikely) common-carrier regulations, then this is either the ISP is running the free MP3s and thus costing themselves a crapload in bandwidth, or it's the ISP's customer to blame, in which case the ISP has nothing to do with it.
I don't get it.
- JoeShmoe
.
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
I was a little taken aback earlier tonight when I was shopping in a Target, and among their selection of CD-R and writable media, was an image of a teenage girl, with a quiet smile on her face, with the caption "They call me Mixtape Molly".
Presumably, Target understands that these mixtapes are most likely to be mixes of copyrighted material. It was a little odd seeing what seemed like a subtle marketing piece for a substantial market for CD-R's, but which presumably had illegal activity underpinning it, presented by one of the biggest and most highly-regarded retail chains.
I think the collision between companies purportedly harmed by piracy and those benefitting from it is going to be a lot more widespread than the mentioned case, soon. It has become a mainstream cultural phenomenon.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
The reason why P2P is good to music industry is because it allows the ones with the money to buy the music they want in the stores AFTER making something that is LEGAL in the store... an AUDITION.
Of course, if everyone that used P2P to that effect started to go to the store to listen to music non-stop the whole days just to find the right new band to buy a CD from, the profits of all stores would hit the bottom!
In my view P2P isn't replacing CD sales... it is replacing CD auditions in the stores... (at least that was how i used it, but some may use it in other ways...).
It isn't the gun that is the killer... it's the personne that pulls the trigger...
The American backlash against the filesharing suits seems to be gaining steam (Stop RIAA Lawsuits Coalition), I wonder if the same will start happening down under as they crack down.
At some point, there needs to be a global citizen response to a global entertainment industry. The corporations are using all the tactics they have available in each country and consumers should do the same. The laws they're trying to cram into the FTAA are on a new level.
"The draft intellectual property rights chapter in the FTAA Agreement vastly expands criminal procedures and penalties against intellectual property infringements throughout the Americas... One clause would require countries to send non-commercial infringers such as Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file-sharers to prison. It is estimated that 60 million Americans use file-sharing software in the US alone." -From a new report by ipjustice.org.
lemme guess...your from nigeria right?
We played dungeons and dragons for 3 hours.....then i was slain by an elf
Imagine if they do actually manage to get all P2P music sharing stopped. I see the weekend music video shows -- all the music sucks (over-broad, I'm sure some people truely like the stuff). If people don't have any opportunity to sample anything other than the pre-defined top-50, they're simply going to stop buying music even faster. I think my music collection consists of no more than 2% of music that's ever made it into the top 50. That's about 50 tracks that have snuck onto my iPod -- sounds about right. I don't think a top-50 track has made it into the rotation today...
Mind you, I don't use any P2P software either and I bought a few CDs last week despite myself. High profile acts like Mike Oldfield, Vangelis and Jean-Michel Jarre :)
I think Harlan Ellison did it first. Harlan sued AOL over posts of his copyrighted material to Usenet.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
You reckon? Fourth or fifth comment down the page says this... You ultra-suck, you copy-pasting foo'. Seen it, dumped it.
I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
It's satire - albeit it's relatively subtle so it seems to have sneaked under the comedy radars of a few people, but the more you read it, the funnier it gets.
As long as we're going after ISP's, lets sue Google! After all, they directly help in providing access to pirated software, illegal MP3s and movies to boot! But screw the minor offenses. Let's get some of that child porn action going!
I mean really, how screwy is this? Last I saw, police ticketed the lawbreakers on the roadway, not the roadway itself or the owners of the roadway. Now wouldn't that be great? "Well Govenor, since we caught people speeding on the state roadway, we're going to fine you, not them." Riiiiiiigt. But since we're fining the owners of the roadway, wouldn't it be even more logical to bust the people who put the huge signs up that say "CRACK HOUSE HERE! TWO FOR ONE SALE!" or "HALF PRICE JOINT SALE NEXT RIGHT"???
While we're sueing the ISP's and Search Engines, lets sue the makers of the monitors you're using now! That's right, they should be preventing you from even seing that stuff. And does your computer have a NIC? They're facilitating a crime right there, baby! Illegal transfer of files! AND DAMN MAXTOR for allowing those files to reside on your harddrive! Screw personal responsibility! I'VE GOT A CASE! I'LL TAKE YOU ALL ON!!!
Or not.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
What is all the ranting about "suing an ISP is like suing car manufacturers for making cars which are used for bank robbing" etc.?
I agree that supplying tools or infrastructure cannot be considered a crime, but what if the supplier knows about the illegal activities? I don't think ISP:s could be held financially responsible directly for the losses of, say, a record company, but I do think that knowingly providing infrastructure for illegal activities should be criminal. Since australia has those strange copyright laws that make all copies of copyrighted material illegal, the page is obviously illegal.
What I don't understand is this: If the contents of a website is illegal, isn't an ISP in almost any country obliged to shut the site down, or face charges? No need for a lawsuit then? If they shut it down when prompted, they can't be asked to pay any damages, right?
If the site isn't illegal, then noone would have any grounds for a lawsuit, and there is no problem?
Sure there are clauses in the Terms and Conditions when you sign up, but some ISP's will advertise how many MP3's you can download in there usage caps. Sure it could be for legitimate MP3s, but really, what do you expect a user to do if there told they could download 300 MP3's a month! on the [X] plan.
National pirate list? too late, I'm a card carrying member *argh*!
The body of this article is completely wrong.
The site in question does not host infringing content, it is merely a bunch of links to other sites where allegedly infringing content can allegedly be had. It's bad enough they're suing the operator of the site, it's worse that they're suing his ISP. If the music industry succeeds in criminalising this type of activity, you could be sued simply for linking to kazaalite.com or napster.com
Not round here. In the three towns nearest me there are *zero* independent music shops left, off the top of my head I can think of seven we used to have, there may have been more. Now we just have the big music chains and supermarkets, plus one of music/game exchange type places.
It's not P2P that was to blame though; it's low margins when you can only buy a dozen copies of the latest pap instead of the thousands a chain (or Amazon) buys, but still have to compete on price. Friendly service and a willingness to spend half and hour helping you track down an obscure indie CD on import apparently don't matter a damn if the big store up the street is selling Britney for 50p less.
We got a major book retailer arrive in our town late last year. Admittedly, it's quite nice and you can get a coffee and danish, but one of our "mom & pop" bookstores has gone already and the other is clearly struggling. I suspect it'll either be a coffee shop or mobile phone store by next summer. Survival of the fittest isn't all it's cracked up to be...
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
In other news, parrot sellers are having their most profitable year on record.
liqbase
"Copy Writes"?
Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, but teach a man to phish...
What kind of crack are you smoking?
You obviously have no idea what extremes people will go through to get something for "free".
In your perfect world, movies will suck, and be done only by people with no commercial motivation. (Hint: The Matrix movie was done because the people making it felt there was money to be had in doing so.) I.E. Non-mainstream movies will become THE mainstream. Which, of course means that the only movies you'll see will have some kind of "message" in them.
Music will not follow any of the normal rules of what is, and is not a hit. Which means that the basic building blocks for what we call music today will erode into something that sounds like Nine Inch Nails mixed with Sarah Maclaughlan. Horrible. And that'll just be the start. Do you like "acid techno"? It'll sound like that. Artists will not have any commercial motivation to create a song that is audibly pleasing, and will make what they want, without the studio time and budget that they would normally have. Have you actually heard garage music? It ain't clean sounding, I'll tell you that.
And as far as donations are concerned, If people don't have to pay for it, they usually won't. Which means if a movie or a song finds a billion pairs of eyes or ears, maybe 1000 people will donate a couple bucks. So artists will not do it "for the people". They will do it for themselves. The human race is generally not charitable unless confroted physically. Do you intend to have starving artists prowling the countryside looking for money?
So certainly, you can keep your idyllic world to yourself, thank you. My eyes, and ears will thank you for it.
krystal_blade
It will be easy to motivate our fellow man; there is hardly anything people treasure more than not being annihilated.
Actually, "sic" is not an acronym for "spelling is correct." This interpretation is merely a mnemonic for people who don't know any Latin.
"Sic" translates to English as "so" or "thus" and in the context in which he uses it is not inappropriate, although it is more usual to annotate reported speech using quotation marks (").
The transport union has called out all its workers as they are at risk of being involved in the transport of illegal and/or prohibited materials. One worker has been heard to mutter "My god I could have been helping the spread of poor quality pre-release knock offs of massive blockbuster movies! I'll never haul again".
Reality check!
I've been thinking about the dynamics of music distribution. Most tours make a loss; they are subsidised by the record companies to promote the bands' latest albums. In the absence of record companies, who would organise and promote band tours? One credible possibility is radio stations. Tickets as prizes already happens. Like any other variety of sponsorship, the sponsor profits by reflected glory, and it is cost-effective for radio stations to promote upcoming performances for their localities. It also strikes me that radio stations have studios...
As to the revenue model of a record-company-free industry, it seems to me that the simplest thing to do is encourage the sharing of mediocre quality MP3s and make high quality CD recordings available for online purchase from the band's website, CD arriving by snailmail. This suits the medium very well; the heavy compression necessary for online delivery degrades recording until it cannot compete with a hi-fi recording on CD - never underestimate the bandwidth of a Fedex full of CDs.
Some people will no doubt settle for mediocre recordings rather than pay. This is true but irrelevant: most artists are lucky to see $1 for every CD sold. Most of the loot goes to supply-chain middlemen such as record store owners and record companies. If sales drop by 90% and artists make $5 a CD from online sales then from the artist's point of view profits are up 500%.
Of course the record companies and record store owners won't be too thrilled, but they do not have a right to govern the relationship between a musician and his audience. They are not entitled to my money.
Pesky blighters have probably never even *seen* a rottle of bum ... bobble of tum ... blubble blumblo ..... [distant crash]
Every bloody emperor has his hand up history's skirt [Peter Hammill/VdGG]
Tough luck! Sell up and move on to a new career. The general population has been told for long enough that they "own" the music they buy.
"Sorry Son, you scratched the record, you'll have to buy it again for full price - no discounts for scratches or breaks"
"Sorry Son, you may have bought the vinyl twice, the cassette and the 8 track, but that doesn't entitle you to a discount on the CD"
"Sorry Son, you melted the CD when you left it on the dash of your car, you'll have to buy it again for full price - no discounts for melted CDs. "
If we had bought a media licence then a new physical copy should come at a massive discount. You just try getting a new media for your melted CD!!
Next they are told that music is free - because it doesn't cost anything to listen to the radio (to the end user anyway).
And finally they know music is free because it costs them nothing (practically nothing - they pay for their internet connection and blank media) to download over the internet.
People are saying that they don't rightly care if it puts musicians out of jobs, or that they get no new music because there's no profit motive to make it. They just don't give a shit.
There's no "profit motive" for many jobs that people do. There are plenty of jobs that give a living wage, but put the worker under great stress and even danger to their own lives. Nobody gets filthy rich being a public school teacher, but they do it anyway.
Who want's to work hard all day and sit down to some relaxing music and see the frivolent lifestyle of the person who made it. To ignore the "class" issue behind the copying of music is wrong.
And best of all, nusic now costs practically nothing to make! A home studio can be bought for little more than the computer it runs on, and the abundance of free music distributed over the internet by such creative people who go this route shows that there doesn't need to be a profit motive to make music.
Basically - music is free, it costs bugger all to make, doesn't need a profit motive, and who wants to support the lifestyles of the rich and famous anyway?
-- oldthinkers unbellyfeel ingsoc
I had expected the RIAA to pull that stunt from the beginning.
Im suprised it was somewhere else first..
It's not valid, but still expected. ISP's should ( do? ) have common carrier status.. So unless the feds are looking, they shouldnt be held liable for their customers actions.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
so, does mean that no one can download the Men at Work 'land down under' song anymore? their one song is hardly something to get uppity about.
Let's use your example of drugs being copied. You state that if everyone could copy them indiscriminately there would be no incentive to make them because there would be no profit. Your statement fails to take account of one glaring fact though - perhaps making life saving drugs is NOT ABOUT PROFIT. It is about saving lives. Therefore you would find that with money taken out of the equation, governments or concerned citizens would still develop these drugs because it is in the national interest to do so. In fact, this is the classic role of government in the first place - provide the essential services required by the community without favouring one group over another.
Now let's look at your comments about communism. TRUE communism is just that; community based government in which all citizens are given equal share of the resources and all citizens contibute back equally. Communism as practiced in China, the USSR etc is NOT communism because it has been perverted to favour a ruling elite above the rest with the GUISE that they are all equal. "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others." - George Orwell.
The overriding problem is that greed and profit over people is destroying the nature of true capitalism in favour of corporatism. Your remarks show this quite well.
The concept of copyright has been so corrupted as to have lost its original meaning long ago in favour of maintaining the status quo for dinosaur industries based on the artificial scarcity model. We as civilised society need to do away with the notion of copyright entirely in an age where digital information can be shared with little to no cost. Don't worry; artists would still be paid for their work, just in a different manner. Live performances, donations (as in the shareware concept but applied to music) and many other avenues. No, they won't make millions. But then again, why should they? Why should a musician who sings a few songs earn millions, while a doctor or nurse who actually saves lives, or a research scientist, makes but a fraction of that salary yet performs a much more important function in society?
Musicians and the record industry have had their days of being mega-rich. We will look back on this time in the future as an aberration, nothing more. A quaint time when musicians and actors were paid a ridiculous amount of money purely for entertaining people. Civilised society will have moved on to more community based living and the realisation that monetary inequality was largely responsible for the worst problems of the past.
Quizo69
Visceral Psyche Films
Errr... I agree with the subject of most of your post, but your math is a little, um, dubious. If sales drop by 90% thats only, say, 100000 CDs instead of one million. Thus the artist sees $1mil vs. $500000 at the lower distribution rates even at $5 per cd, a 50% decline in revenue.
I do believe, however, that the music industry is outdated. The CD rush was brought on by a lot of people buying music they already had but wanted in CD form. People rebought and reestablished their entire music libraries.
The problem is that once market saturation occurs, sales are going to drop significantly. The RIAA would argue that even new music sales are taking a hit, and I would respond that it still isn't piracy that hold the majority of the responsibility. Why spend $17 for a soundtrack, when you can buy the DVD of the movie (which alot include the soundtrack) for only $3 more? When the industrialized pop stars fail to pump out innovative material and the whole boy band/diva girl/rap-rock thing is getting old cd sales of new music are going to go down.
The solution is to introduce tons of new and different music (and don't say alternative because alternative rock is mainstream). Music companies don't like this option because it wouldn't be profitable for them. They make all of their money from a small-set of over-hyped mega stars. So let the RIAA companies die, I won't miss them and their death won't be the end of music.
It shouldn't cost a million dollars to record a CD. $100000 buys a lot of studio time and post work ($100/hr is still 1000 hrs or six months full time). Only need to sell 10000 copies at $10 dollars a pop to break even. $100000 too expensive? Build your own in-home studio for $10000 dollars. Produce it yourself or pay another $10000 for a professional. Most music doesn't require teams of sound engineers or producers. Now we are talking 4000 (at $5) copies to break even. Say you sell your own CDs at gigs you have. You can take 100% of the profit. Charge $10 and sell 2000 and you've broken even, not to mention gig money. Sell 50 cds at every gig and you'll break even after 40 gigs.
Don't throw RIAA type arguments at me, there are too many hands in the pot. Do what other companies do and reestablish your profit model. Gas companies took a tremendous hit at the advent of electric light. Did they try to ban electricity? No, they found another profit model in something else. Cars. Now I'm not saying that pirating is moral, just nobody can ever stop it. Adapt. Move on.
Why, o why must the sky fall when I've learned to fly?
I suspect this is the poster's problem. If he wants to play around with distributing stuff that is available at every other record shop, then he is bound to lose sales as p2p takes hold.
I have yet to see many specialist CD shops go down the gurgler. More off-the-beaten-track recordings simply aren't available via p2p, and only rarely (with a fair degree of effort) via IRC.
Perhaps that poster should have stayed with the original business model. Let's face it, who needs to encourage the likes of Celine Dion?
Notice to humor impaired: What follows is sarcasm.
What about cars? Have you any idea just how many people are KILLED by cars every single day? Thousands. Even more than guns, people have proven time and time again that they cannot be trusted with cars. So we need to ban cars.
And then alcohol. Thousands of people are killed and mained every day because alcohol is used. We must ban alcohol.
So no alcohol and no cars. But that doesn't stop the harm caused by LEAVING your house. Thosands of people are killed every day with in miles of there homes. So no more travel. Ever.
But the worst is that the number one cause of murder is people. All murders are caused by people. So that's it. No more cars, alcohol, travel or people.
A peaceful world is just a few laws away.
Creative Spelling Copyright (2002). May use without Persimmons
-"Sic" translates to English as "so" or "thus" and in the context in which he uses it is not inappropriate,[sic]
I always thought it meant 'I am quoting some other illiterate bastard that spelled / used this word / sentence incorrectly and since I am quoting him exactly I need to let you know that he, not I, totally thrashed the rules of the English language in the afore mentioned quote.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
I just remembered that QED means something to that effect, however.
...' or '... which makes it obvious that ...'
Latin. quod erat demonstrandum (which was to be demonstrated).
QED was explained to me as '... and thus it follows that
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
I think Pavlov needs to run a few new experiments. Forget ringing a bell and checking a dog's jowls - this one has some potential.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
Copying songs isn't the subject of the music industry law suits. Distrubiting copyrighted material by allowing others to make a coppies of material that you are offering is.
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
Sue the syringe manufactures for "profiting from the proliferation of drugs." Then sue prisons for "profiting from the proliferation of crime." Next, sue abortion clinics for "profiting from the proliferation of rape." Later, sue CDROM manufacturers, CD burner manufacturers, and MP3 player manufacturers for "profiting from the proliferation of online music"! Where does it all stop?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
I can't afford anything better for them right now.
If you have no money, what makes you think everyone else does? I know that CDs would be the last thing I'd buy on a tight budget.
Have you noticed the rather haphazard way in which life-saving drugs are created? Only if they are expected to make a lot of money do the companies put much effort into it.
This means that many diseases aren't treated, and drugs to treat them aren't developed. This means that vaccines tend to be ignored, or even actively dropped. People don't have to keep taking them, so they aren't as profitable as "treatments" that don't cure.
The government has, occasionally, had to step in and say "You WILL make this vaccine!". More commonly, it will guarantee the payment of a certain amount whether the vaccine is needed or not. But this means that except when the government is paying attention, development will stop ("Hey, noboy will notice. And this other thing might make more money."). And then when the emergency arrives, the government has to *pay more* to get the company to make the vaccine that it's already agreed to make.
Profit is not a universal solution for allocating resources...at least not if you want to live. Profit is nearly as blind as evolution (thanks to the Harvard School of "Business and shortsightedness").
Now you can argue that a long term view of profit would give the correct answer, but that's not the one that corporations are using. Managers are judged on the performance during the most recent quarter. This practically guarantees that no long term planning will be done...and that managers will try to skip ship before the crows come home to roost (and pick over the cracass).
I can envision a system where good long-term planning was rewarded...and even under such a system small groups would get the short shrift, though nowhere near as badly. But it isn't to the benefit of the drug companies to cure diseases. Not short or long term. It's to their benefit to *treat* diseases. With something that requires continued purchases. In such a situation, I don't trust a free market of any stripe to come to the socially most beneficial result. It may come to the result most beneficial to the drug companies, but I see no reason that *that* should be my preference.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
You mean I can't get Men At Work singles any more? Damnit.
-nd
This has been posted how many times before. It seems like everytime a post related to P2P is here, someone replies with this exact response. I wouldn't be suprised if this was some form of astroturfing from the RIAA.
"Uh y-yeh." He mumbled, shocked.
"That's it. What's your name? You're blacklisted. Now take yourself and your little bitch friend out of my store - and don't come back." I barked.
Yeah, that sounds like a great place to take a family. You can't get buy songs with offensive lyrics, but you can get roughed-up by the store owner.
But seriously, I don't see how a blacklist could possibly work. You threw out someone who was going to buy a CD from you store. If that person is blacklisted, your store and any other music store will never see a penny from him again. Now how is that going to help your business? And guess what? That CD will still find its way onto the internet. So, when all is said and done, the CD is out there for download and you're out the $15 the kid was going to pay you before being tossed out. Good plan.
"Oh dear, she's stuck in an infinite loop and he's an idiot" -Prof. Farnsworth (Futurama)
I've been in and out of bands for 15 years or so, and for me, the motivation to make music has changed over time. First, I was in it for the chicks (the ass). Then, it dawned on me I could make some money, so that was a driving factor for a while.
Although I've never got rich from music, it seems to me that the rich rock stars that continue to perform are in it less for the money than for things like fame, and yes, for the pure sake of creating great music.
For me, an arguably "failed musician" (failed rock star?) money certainly is no longer the motivation, yet I still pour a ton of time and effort into making music with my friends (much to the chagrin of my wife). Why do I do it?
Music is a way I can discover connections with other people, be they members of the band I play with, or in the audience listening. And thanks to modern digital communication technology, I can capture that music and re-live it indefinitely. If someone were to make that kind of recording cumbersome, or worse, illegal, whatever innovation I might come up with would most likely never come about (or at least never get captured), because it would be just too hard at that point.
"Creativity is allowing ones self to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep" - Scott Adams
Ok first of all you do not own a record store. You only wish you owned a record store. You should be sued for what little money you have for putting your hands on a minor. How would you like it if someone grabbed your daughters and called them "little shits". Posts like yours do not belong on /. and BTW you are a little off topic here.
Also there is no reason someone can not copy and distribute music to others provided both parties have "legitimately" purchased the music that is being shared.
I think you should look at the hi $$ record execs and your 20 to 50% markup on the merchandise that you sell as reasons people seek music elsewhere. We are in a capitalist society. Price rules and ingenuity flourishes. Get over it. Perhaps you might be better off selling widgets or collecting welfare.
So take a chill pill Lars...
Stupid troll, your ridiculous idea has one gaping flaw. I don't have to give you my name. In fact, if you had talked to me that way, not only would you have not gotten a name, I would have bitchslapped you straight across the Christian Music isle.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
"if the majority is doing something because they think its right and justified, it becomes so."
Majorities do not need to better decisions. This is a "might makes right" argument, and the United States founding fathers were actually quite obsessed with limiting the power of the majority, because freedom and liberty require protections for the minority as well.
This is a common misnomer of democracies, one that political scientists have tried to point out for years. Democratic processes do not lead to good governments or better decisions, nor are they more efficient than dictatorships. They're actually rather inefficient.
Democracies are freer than other forms of government because, they give legitmacy to rulers through a process that allows us to throw the bums out. That doesn't mean we'll choose good leaders, GW Bush being a case in point.
-Stu
I think the musicians have to perform live as they had to do a hundred years ago and as many musicians have to do now
So, in your opinion, there is no artistic merit to recording art; only performance art? What about written art, is it not the same as recording art? Should only lecturers get paid, now?
The era to become rich by selling millions of CDs without any real work is over.
The number of musicians that get rich by selling millions of CDs is rather small. And I think you might want to revise your view about how much work goes into promoting their art. It is "real work".
Ditto for authors.
Copyright is about a system that allows remuneration for artists so that society gets the benefits of their work. It's something that many people in this society accept, and will fight for. Many companies have distorted copyright as an attempt to make unlimited profits off of something that was once considered creative. Similar for software companies. This needs to be changed.
Music recordings could be viewed as a service, just like software development could be viewed as a service. The question becomes, what's the easiest and most equitable way to fund such efforts? Today, it's through productization. Perhaps there can be a better, different model, such as flexible DRM as in the iTunes Music Store.
RMS has often suggested that there should be no freedom restrictions for such efforts. RMS' only indication of funding was the charging of a "small fee" for the redistribution of works. He does not seem to want to attribute any economic value to artistic works, such as software development.
I think that's against the interests of society at large. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with viewing artistic works as an economic good ("Wow, that was a great song, I'll pay you to write another one!"), but of course one can take it to extremes, as the prevailing system has.
-Stu
You seem miss that in the old days, composers were commissioned by kings and queens to write music; that was how they stayed alive, not through performance art.
Perhaps we can create a market-oriented commission system. But that still would require a form of copyright.
-Stu
I used to buy a fair amount of CDs when I was a teenager/erly 20's. Then my buying tailed off. Now, primarily because I can easily sample music risk-free (no cash involved) my music buying has picked up again.
There's too much hot-air talked about p2p, with no-one quite understanding it's impact.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
Why don't these clowns just cut to the chase and sue the whole freakin' planet. Obviously earth spins like a CD and by virtue of having ears, all human beings must be guilty of hearing the industry's music somewhere, someplace, in a manner that must have been illegal... and should therefore pay the music industry billions of dollars for the indignity of it all.
We should all just bow our thieving heads and spend the rest of our pathetic lives paying them every cent we earn from now until our pointless demise...
I mean, if I were to have a moment of clarity I might think "Hey, by this logic we need to sue the mail service... because mail bombers buy stamps!" Of course, clarity, sanity, logic, legality, or even morality are not the point. The point is entitlement. These men have had a long run getting fat and disgusting by raping artists and screwing their customers. They've gotten very used to a world that owed them a living and they don't want to have to work to maintain that. Rather than coming up with new models for selling music that accommodate a changing world, or providing value added, or even just trying to keep pace with changing society, they feel entitled (in their piggy little minds), to buy laws and lawyers to enforce the existence of a world that channels the money directly into their bank accounts.
In the end, our bitching and pissing and moaning won't kill these turkeys. Their own draconian acts will do what we couldn't. In the end people will find ways to work around them and they'll simply become the undisputed masters of their sinking little boat... what a pity...
Genda
So let me get this straight. Your shop is going down the drain. Less and less people are going there. It's so bad you can't afford clothes for your children.
So someone comes into your store to buy something, even though you don't have much in your store that's very popular now, and instead of taking his money, you abuse him and send him and his money (and his friend's money) down the road to another store.
Did you ever stop to think that there might be a better way?
I'm Going Now
And in other news, the RIAA has sued ARIA in the Australian Federal Court. The USA based RIAA is suing its Australian counterpart, claiming that ARIA violated its copyrighted idea of filing fucking stupid lawsuits. SCO is reportedly also considering taking similar action.
ConCen are claiming that the site was a search engine and no music was actually hosted on their servers:
and the werewolves came...
and they ate him...
and they drank his beer...