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US CD Sales Increase in 2004
Lindsay Lohan writes "BBC is reporting that CD sales rose by 2.3% in the U.S. in the year 2004 despite the growing popularity of legal digital music downloads through services such as iTunes. On the other hand, a BBC report from last July noted that pirated CD sales have hit a record high. Sounds like the RIAA should be going after the real pirates, not little Susie or Grandma."
stop buying them for christ's sake! now these idiots will believe that the frivolous lawsuits against 15-year-olds were successful.
In the end, they're both theives.
But by going after little Susie or gramma they can make the claim that they're doing something about piracy...
Oh, and they can't if they shut down a large scale CD manufacturing plant in SE Asia?
Hasn't the Music industry recorded record profits during the years when it CLAIMED that they lost MILLIONS to illegal downloads? It seems like the rise of p2p has coincided with profit increases for the music industry. I won't say it's a cause and an effect. But it's a drop in a bucket to them. Apple's success shows people are willing to pay, just not the inflated, over-hyped prices of the crap cds the RIAA has been coming out with.
And they prove that any drop in CD sales was purely because of the economic slump, when non-essential things like CDs and DVDs are the first things to leave the on-the-spot purchase habits of people.
Or maybe the prices have dropped, making the product more desirable to the consumer.
However, they'll just say that it is the result of their "anti online piracy" actions.
hat would be so un-american
Considering this was reported by the BBC, you are probably right.
just wait untill next week and they'll announce that cd sales are down because of piracy.
they talk with one face to the goverment yelling wolf and with the "everything is so GOOOD!" to the investors...
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
You say pirate CD sales have hit a record high... and thus the RIAA should be going after them. Umm. That's the same flawed logic that had the RIAA attacking Napster.
What if it is the Pirate CD sales that are the primary motivator behind the 2.4% increase? Come on guys... be consistent. All methods of piracy can have some beneficial network effects on sales. All methods of piracy can ALSO cause lower sales under different circumstances.
It is, in a word, wrong to deify music swapping online, but demonise pirate CD sales. They're both illegal... the only real difference is that one has a profit motive, and the other doesn't. But the actual level of illegality, under current law, is about equal. It's illogical to praise one and not the other, don't succumb to the same stupidity that is rife within the **AA.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
Time for a revolution!
That's not the sort of editorial comment I would have expected from Lindsay Lohan.
I knew the RIAA was evil, but to sign such a blatent deal with his lord of evil?
The CD format still accounts for 98% of the 666 million albums sold, according to research company Nielsen Soundscan."
In all seriousness though, internet trading, beit legal or not has done nothing but fuel americas passion for music, which has in turn increased sales of CDs. Not to mention profits turned from lawsuits on the masses.
Go ahead and call me unreliable; reliable is just a synonym for predictable.
Little Susie and Grandma don't know how to cover their tracks and are therefore easy targets to make public examples of. The word gets out even if at the expense of PR.
Michalangelo Progr
So wait, are you still a thief/pirate if you buy a pirate CD?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
1) If you think that the RIAA is sitting on its hands and just letting the largescale music pirates get away with ripping them off while only targetting "Susie and grandma" for litigation, you're quite mistaken. They spend quite a bit of money to seek out and take down these largescale pirates. Unfortunately, some Asian countries are more hospitable to the pirates than others, so policing it is a difficult job.
2) It seems to me that the year-long push by the RIAA to associate P2P filesharing with stealing is paying off, though only to the tune of 2% or so. If they can convince enough people that piracy is a crime, then it is guaranteed to boost actual sales of CDs at the expense of filesharing.
People are generally good and are willing to follow the law. The RIAA's push to make people aware of copyright law has finally made some progress, but also consider that music artists have also become generally better lately than they were in say the mid-late 90's. Of course, the increase in sales corresponds more to the anti-piracy push than to the improvement in music quality (Good music can still be pirated as easily as bad music).
The RIAA should just sell their CDs for $5 through shady looking guys on the street.
They dont make much money in that region anyway. So it looks better to go after pirates here in the US.
In America we are imprisoned by our fear of them.
"Little Susy or grandma" might not be the crux of the problem, but "real pirates" are just as likely to be the guy living next door nowdays. They may not be running processing plants like the mob, but I've seen plenty of "village geeks" selling downloaded movies and CDs. At the call center where last I 9-5'd there were several people with fast home connections and DVD burners who regularly sold downloads to other employees on the floor.
This was not just onesy-twosey stuff. Any given week I'm sure one fellow sold 20 or 30 CDs at five bucks a pop. Multiply this by 1000's of businesses across the country and it's easy to see how it can really add up.
What amazes me is people really cannot tell the difference (or don't care) between a real CD and a POS CDR burnded from MP3s. I would be indignant about the pirates SELLING this stuff, but given these people are buying something akin to a cassette tape all you can really say is "it's their money to waste."
With all the lawsuits and crappy content flying around, the only way I can stock my MP3 collection is to buy CDs and then resell them on eBay! That's two sales right there! Or sometimes I just take 'em right back and tell the dweeb with the KoRn T-shirt that they won't play in my Dell. I bet they resell the same CDs 3-4 times! Burn 'n' Return baby!
grandma...."grandma got run over by a RIAAndeer...." comes to mind.
The added benefit of suing the lil' guys is that they don't have enough money to fight back....but have just enough money to make a settlement worthwhile....especially when they don't have too many middlemen to pony up to.
Either way, they can't say that downloading is really hurting them any more....they are still selling more and more and the fact that they aren't focusing their attention to real pirates...and yet manage a gain in sales....that tells alot.
Those numbers don't look so good if you compare the growth in CD sales to the sales of video (VHS/DVD's) software, or to the economy as a whole:
Video: Consumer Electronics Association: DVD Software Sales Benefit: Although movie-ticket sales fell one percent to $9.2 billion in 2003, consumer spending on the purchase or rental of video software (VHS tape and DVD) rose 18.2 percent to $22.5 billion, according to DEG. DVD accounted for 72 percent of total home video spending.
Overall Economy: CNN The economy has expanded at rates exceeding 3 percent for the past six quarters and seems poised to keep growing. The White House last Friday estimated GDP will expand 3-1/2 percent in 2005.
There probably was just better music last year than in previous years. Ok, so maybe only 2.4% better but improvement nonetheless. /didn't buy any CDs last year. Long live iTMS!
The RIAA's members can always lean heavily on their customers' consciences to go legit when they download a 128k mp3 from Kazaa, but if they buy a perfect replica of the album they have no reason to suspect that they will buy a legit copy. Almost every pirated copy that is sold is a sale that has to be totally written off. Few customers would probably even know the difference. With file sharing, there is always the hope that the user will go legit.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
If sales slump, **AA will blame it on piracy, and use it as justification to enact even more legislation to protect their profits.
And if sales rise, they'll use it as justification that their methods are starting to work against piracy, and consequently we need to make them even stronger.
How much higher would the increase have been had piracy not been a problem? No one can say for sure. But you can't state that file sharing has not had a negative effect as a result of a positive increas in sales.
A blog like any other.
Hi Lindsay!! I luv u!!!
I went to your site and "rocked out" to the intro, and then i saw nothing but PINK! My eyes actually screamed in pain. I heard them. I shit you not.
Please Lindsay. Redesign your site... for me?
And show me your knockers. :-)
Electric Monkey Pants
The report, for the country's National Bureau of Economic Research, studied the habits of 412 students.
Hmmmm.... they studied the habits of students. Aren't students usually short on money but have broadband on campus? This is hardly a realistic "sampling" of the population, so therefore cannot be taken seriously.
So which is it?
"Teleporting Rodents with D-Cell Battery Displacement" theory -- IgnoramusMaximus (692000)
Part of the goal of the RIAA and MPAA is, naturally, to instill fear in those who might KNOWINGLY accept, purchase, download, etc. pirated materials. This creates stigma towards those that do (sort of like anti-smoking ads in the past couple decades).
This affects the demand for pirated materials which in turns lowers the economic viability for pirates.
The real issue for the RIAA / MPAA is getting all the "not sure if it's really wrong, I do it sometimes, I still buy occasional CDs and DVDs but like to try them" crowd over to the "It's wrong." view. Until they can do that, no amount of efforts will slow piracy down because so many people are doing it, and OK with doing it, that there is a serious strength in numbers.
The crux of the matter is, and will always be, people give their money to companies for often irrational reasons. If more people contributed to artists and things they liked and enjoyed directly, we wouldn't need oppressive middle-men grasping at straws to retain their distribution powers.
We are one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. Back to you with the weather, Bob!
How does this prove that? It may suggest such a thing, but suggestion and proof are miles apart.
I think that file sharing leads to greater purchases of music amongst people who have some money. I know that I download music, but if I see stuff I like in a shop, especially if it is on offer, I'll be much more tempted to buy it if I know it is good, because I want the actual product.
It probably also means that tat won't get bought, and maybe greater sales of music are down to there being better music advertised to the consumer. Instead of pop tat, there is a lot more variety of music advertised these days.
Oh, you mean the guys on the street corners selling the CDs pressed in the large CD factories in SE Asia?
If Pirated CD sales (from large scale CD factories, not burned copies, if you read the article) are becoming bigger than legal CD sales, maybe P2P isn't quite as big of a problem as 21 large scale factories in Russia and many more in SE Asia supplying the rest of the world...
Or is this the new career? Would explain why we never see you anywhere without the Sidekick I guess...
---
You think this is something? Click here
...pirates the RIAA actually have a chance of catching Grandma.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
So it looks better to go after pirates here in the US.
Sueing customers and 80 year old Mac owners who can't even install Kazaa, let alone use it to download music looks better than closing a manufacturing plant?
Which record studio hired you??
I would mod your article -1 Redundant. We've been saying that for two years plus.
Did you pay for it? No.
Do you now have it? Yes.
Did you take it without permission? Yes.
Sounds like a textbook case to me.
You can justify your crime all you want, but it still boils down to your decision to deprive someone of potential earnings. They can only afford to create that product (that you pirated) because of the potential to recover their investment.
It's one thing to not understand this. It's another thing to take issue with the word "theft" simply because you're not physically depriving anyone of anything. It's yet another to understand all of this and still believe that you're not doing anything wrong.
Quite the contrary. The reason I don't buy any RIAA CDs is because they're total bastards. The thought that my money is contributing to lobbying efforts against both my interests and ideals will give me too way too much of a nagging conscience to ever enjoy the thing I bought.
Perhaps if they stop suing people and lobby for sane copyright laws (like a 14 year term with mandatory registration and repealing the DMCA and all other related legislation) and wait a few years, I might reconsider my boycott, but I figure I've got shorter odds of seeing pigs fly while being struck by lighting and winning the lottery all at the same time.
I love these articles because they are so misleading. I don't believe there is a strong correllation between sales and piracy. Sales are higher because the economy is doing better. Could they be even higher if there were no pirating? Perhaps, but I would consider it a small subset of people who would have bought something but didn't. Most people downloading stuff would never have bought it in the first place. If the record label lowered their prices that would also increase sales. Thus lower prices == piracy. ;)
The fundamental flaw is that in order to exaggerate their losses they come up with absurd calculations like loss = num_files_shared_last_year * retail_price. That is absurd.
I was watching C-SPAN last night and saw the confirmation hearing of U.S. President Bush's new Commerce Secretary. He was asked by Sen Gordon Smith (R-OR) how he would handle the copyright violations and IP issues that are crippling our innovative entrepreneurial spirit. I believe thre new Commerce Sec nominee has been CEO of Kellogg company. Wasn't that the company who was price-fixing cereal some time ago? Does anyone remember?
And I even bought a couple CD's this year!
So there!!!
Kenny P.
Visualize Whirled P.'s
I think the rise in movie profits has more to do with the change in the format from VHS to DVD, all the movie companies are re-releasing all their classic movies onto "special edition" DVD's and thus people are buying them.
however Cd's havent changed format and there's no reason to buy all your old favorites again. Maybe when DVD-A or SACD takes off we'll see a big spike in music sales too.
Does Lindsay run a Linux box?
Are there more hot girls like her running linux?
Maybe it's time to finally try that new pickup line of mine: "What's your distro, baby?"
So where is the line drawn when it comes to choosing between someone's earnings and the greater good?
At aristry (for example music)?
At mathematical knowledge (for example computer programs)?
Maybe at a cure for cancer?
And even more importantly; who draws that line?
I am not saying the answer is set in stone, and I am not saying artistic works should be out of the author's control - I am trying to distinguis thieves from something else.
Sounds like the RIAA should be going after the real pirates, not little Susie or Grandma."
Oh, oh, I know -- I know! {raised, waving hand}
The reason they aren't going after these "real" pirates is because they are in nations who's legal systems have no incentive to stop the flow of pirated American, European and Japanese media.
It really makes me sad to see this kind of uninformed tripe in a headline. It brings out the general ignorance of the masses in these threads.
"She got some big ass titties"
MY SECRET DIARIES
No,
They will talk about how good the effort is going in stopping P2P.
And most likly ignore the fact that CD sales are tracking the economy fairly well.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
What if persons C through ZZZZZZZZ also duplicate this sandwich, and they are no longer hungry? Should the potential earnings of A (who wanted to sell sandwiches based on his secret recipy) still oughtweigh the fact that thousands of rather oddly named people are no longer hungry?
I just got back from a trip to South-East Asia, and in Thailand, Cambodia and Laos it was rediculous how every single music store sold bootleg CDs. Mostly stuff downloaded from the net (lots of 'best of' with tons of typos), but in high-end/high-quality cases. Especially the stuff I saw in Louang-Prabang (Laos). They were dirt cheap, $2-$5, and I heard they were even cheaper in VietNam, although I didn't make it out there. If you want even more flagrant copyright violations, when I had satelite tv in Cambodia they were playing Swordfish on one of the channels and it was the exact same DivX screener that I'd downloaded when it first came out in theatres...with the same animated logo scrolling across the top right and everything. How crazy is that?
I'm a writer, a poet, a genius, I know it. I don't buy software, I grow it.
picture
Pretty much all you need to know to understand why CD sales dropped for a few years, then rose again in 2004.
but it still boils down to your decision to deprive someone of potential earnings.
I download music... quite frequently, for a variety of reasons... say I download a madonna song... It's worth the 3 seconds it will take me to click on the link, that I saw browsing for another song, to get it and listen to it once, but its not worth 99 cents on itunes... if I had to pay 99 cents, there is no way I would get it... so I am not a potential sale, because I know there's no way I'd buy that song... on a sidenote, I've spent more on CD's this year, than any year prior, and I made less than the year prior (by a good margin) though, to the RIAA's credit... most of my music is no longer owned by one of their labels... so they are, in effect losing money because I can now find a wider range of things, and have found better stuff that they don't produce...
WANNAWIKI Wannawiki WannaWiki WANNAWIKI!
> How much higher would the increase have been had piracy not been a problem? No one can say for sure.
> But you can't state that file sharing has not had a negative effect as a result of a positive increas
> in sales.
I'd like to see some evidence of this assertion. I'm very wary of things that seem at face value to be common sense, and I don't see any reason to buy this particular claim. The last album I bought (Brian Wilson's SMiLE) was purchased after I heard a P2P download of Heroes and Villains, and I doubt very much I'm alone.
Record sales have slumped before (there was, as I recall, a big slump in the late 80s and early 90s). It seems that the current slump, which coincides, like the last one, with an economic downturn, has now been oh-so-conveniently attached to P2P piracy.
I'm not saying it isn't possible, but I see no reason to take RIAA's word for it, any more than I would take, say, Kazaa's word for it that piracy hasn't hurt. Both have obvious interests that render them completely unreliable.
So where's the evidence that P2P downloading caused the slump in record sales?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I suppose the stereotype of "teen idol" must be broadening...
I wonder if Congress ever bothers to look at SEC filings. It'd clear up an awful lot of this mess, as all the members of the RIAA, MPAA, and BSA are publicly traded companies, and intentionally misleading filings to the SEC are quite illegal.
Y'know, you blow up one sun and suddenly everyone expects you to walk on water.
But by going after little Susie or gramma they can make the claim that they're doing something about piracy...
The real question is what are they doing about music quality. Inundation of Britany Spears and the Backstreet boys have made me care much than less.
I have not bought a CD in 2 years. I HAVE, however, downloaded iTunes entire albums and countless singles. There's no point when I'm just going to put it in my mp3 collection anyway so that it's portable.
The REAL question(s) is (are) 1)what are record companies doing about the QUALITY of music such that we'd actually care about purchasing them in the first place? 2) The only "CDs" I've recently bought are Dvd-audios. Am not sure of any current way to rip 5.1 surround sound to mp3 or any other compression format, so how does piracy apply here?
I know that if I would ever actually want to own a hard copy of anything, it would be a Dvd-audio or maybe an SACD. What's the RIAA have to say about that?
*cricket*
-- (Score:i , Imaginary)
I don't exactly think the world of the recording industry, and it's a good point that there's a huge fallacy in their argument. I don't think it's a very serious one because most people in the financial world probably consider it a loss if they were expecting money and it doesn't come, and it's getting very picky to start complaining otherwise. Whether or not that was because of piracy is much more contentious.
If we're going to talk about fallacies, however, it should also be acknowledged that pointing out a fallacy doesn't exactly disprove the recording industry's claim that it's making less money than it should be in a fair market. (Trying to prove it isn't easy, either, and the recording industry isn't better than anyone else.)
A profit doesn't automatically mean increased sales. It could as easily mean that costs have been cut, possibly even as a reaction to forward thinking about whatever effect piracy is having. Realistically, most businesses simply have to aim for a profit whether they think it matches their ideals or not. It may also mean that money has been gained some other way such as through partnerships or creative accounting.
It's a fallacy in itself, however, to start suggesting that just because a profit has still been made, piracy isn't having an unfair effect on the industry... which is what the grandparent and a variety of other people seem to be claiming.
I despise the way that the bulk of the recording industry works, and the amount of FUD that they tend to spread in attempts to get themselves noticed. But there's so much FUD going on in both directions that it's often even hard to tell if there's credible evidence either way. Wherever that evidence is, though, this isn't it.
The following is a description of intellectual property theft A spends two years and a tidy sum getting an AA degree in culinary arts. He spends years working as a short-order cook, then works his way up until his restaurant is popular and people who come in actually know his name, and a new sandwich is his unique and top-selling item. One night, B breaks in to the restaurant and steals the recipe, and sets up shop in a seedier part of town, and sells the sandwiches for a pittance, flaunting it all the while.
You, my good sir, are a moron. While there's no shortage of semi-talented pop-princess corporate-manufactured bands, there's probably a hell of a lot more who are smaller, and struggling, and who are cutting it close if they expect to live off their work. And you're going to say that all their work is honestly and truly worth NOTHING to you, since that's what you're willing to pay for it? The reason that you want to download it at all is that the people responsible for producing it have talent, creativity, and the wherewithal to actually get something done. Copyright and intellecual property laws, while subject to abuses like anything else, are primarily in place to protect the rights of the creative and ingenious people that our country relies on.
I have been thinking a bit about the economics of piracy lately. Anyone who knows a bit/lot ;) about economics, please comment.
:)
Now, when were talking about digital media, the price to reproduce the good is very close to 0. So we can think of the song/movie/whatever information as being free to reporduce. Now, the RIAA/whoever sets the price of the song/movie to something that is much higher than 0, causing a price floor. If I remember correctly, in my micro-economics class, the teacher said that when you introduce a price floor, black markets emerge. Does this "justify" the online piracy or at least explain in economic terms why it exists?
Of course, I could be confused and have it all wrong
Can your karma go above being Excellent?
...is linsay lohan, wait, don't asnwer that, I don't REALLY care!
>So where's the evidence that P2P downloading caused the slump in record sales?
There is no evidence to the contrary, either.
A blog like any other.
The economy was up in 2004... therefore CD sales were up as a matter of trend. As the economy improves, so does disposable income and sales of just about everything.
Good luck finding artists willing to produce art under these terms.
Would you invest $200,000 in making an album or a movie if your only hope of restitution was tips sent in by people you'll never meet, starting one or two years after your project is completed (and paid for)?
What do you do for a living now? Would you work full time for an entire year with no pay whatsoever, anticipating that people you'll never meet will send you tips next year?
If you were a bank, or production company, or venture capital firm, and an artist came to you and asked for a $200,000 loan to make a movie, explaining that the money would be repaid by strangers who might submit tips a year or two from now, would you loan money to the artist?
I don't think so.
It takes a lot of CDs to fill and Ipod..... An awfull lot...
That and circut citys 9.99$ for any cd made the price right for me to start getting some more music....
Did you pay for it? No.
Do you now have it? Yes.
Did you take it without permission? Yes.
So anything you get for free is stealing. I can think of a lot of examples where this is not the case. Say I recorded a show off CBS. I would still answer the same to all three of your questions.
Hate you break you out of your little black and white world there, but when you talk about copyright it is just as infringing to forward an email without permission as it is to download a song, singing "Happy Birthday" in public is legally actionable and girl scouts pay a fee every year to sing campfire songs together. In the real copyright world it is just as infringing for me to make duplicates of my parents wedding pictures or to copy a photo out of my high school year book. In the real copyright world my four year olds scribbles are instantly copyrighted and her preschool teacher better have permission before she duplicates them. I bet you personally have infringed copyright hundreds of times in 2004, but because you disapprove of the way I do it, I'm a theif and a pirate.
Tell you what. If they come up with a copyright system that makes any sense, then I'll respect it.
Don't like the price of music currently? Then just don't buy it. Or if you absolutely must buy it then buy it used. Feel guilty that the artist didn't get your cash? Buy a t-shirt. Write them fan mail. Whatever.
But this "I'm going to put this CD up on a P2P network for personal reason X" or "I wouldn't buy it anyway so I'll just take it" is wrong. Morally, ethically, and legally. Heck, people aren't entitled to health care so why are you (rhetorical not personal) entitled to entertainment? The public good isn't served if the artist isn't getting adequate compensation. Legally is what being done actual theft? Of course not. But rhetorically it fits. Somebody has made something and offered it up for sale. You've (again rhetorical) taken it without paying the artist. The leap to "that is theft" isn't that surprising or hard to understand. It is easily digestible by society in general which really doesn't want to invest the time to work out the knot "but the work isn't physical and it is easily distibuted." In many cases I'd assert that point is irrelevent since the work has intrinsic value beyond whether it is on a plastic disc or merely exists as some electrical pulses over a wire.
Again, all references to you are rhetorical. They are not meant to connotate that the parent asserted those points as personal beliefs or facts.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
I won this debate nearly six years ago, and we're not having it again. So go home.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
... piracy is good for the industry to some degree, as it brings to mind works that might then be bought. Otherwise its out of mind...
How do I know this?
Its simple, back in teh napster days beginnings a co worker had put together some 80's popular song CD and many ofthe works I liked and thought of getting a copy from him, that I might better be able to find the albums at the record store... something for the sales clerks to hear and help me with..
But IP shit hit the fan about that time and I lost interest due to all the flax the industry was causing over it, and the threats they were making... it all sounded/appeared to be the result of a spoiled child when they believed something was being taken away from them in their greed...
Not very appealing...
You can justify your crime all you want, but it still boils down to your decision to deprive someone of potential earnings."
This statement, right here, is exactly where the gray area is residing. Whether or not potential earnings were lost. There are some out there who are doing exactly that. Downloading music in lieu of buying it. There are some who are downloading music because they already have the CD and want an MP3 version of it. There are some out there that are simply trying to find new music to get into, those tend to turn into serious customers. And, simply, there are some who acquire it just to have it. (I actually met somebody like that. Had like a 10 gig collection and never really listened to it.) This is why there is so much flack over use of the term 'theft'. This is, by no means, a black and white situation.
What really irks me is this scenario: What if an album is really hyped up. What if I download a song from that album and go "bleech". The song is deleted and I never go buy the album. Did I steal from the righteous RIAA, or did I save myself some money that the RIAA would have shafted me for if I had done it their way? I can't return the album if I don't like it so gee, where's that leave us?
It's not black and white.
"Derp de derp."
a communistic trait by those who want to oppose capitalism and thus drives record companies out of business.
Those pirates aren't selling only to people in their own country... they are being imported in various ways and being sold in the US and all over the world. Check out the article done by 60 minutes for more info about it.
Would you invest $200,000 in making an album or a movie if your only hope of restitution was tips sent in by people you'll never meet, starting one or two years after your project is completed (and paid for)?
Why would someone need to invest that kind of money into an album? Any time I've heard a decent band get produced by a 'big name' producer, the music has come out sounding soulless, tinny, lacking mid-bass, and poppy, whereas the studio session in the padded and mic'ed garage sounded terrific. Maybe if Americans cared more about art in music than production values, none of this would matter, because if you could produce an album in a few weeks with a few hundred dollars worth of equipment and distribute it cheaply online you wouldn't be as fucked.
And movies cost way, WAAAAY more than $200k. Incidentally, how do you justify the fact that the artists have to reimburse record companies for the $100k+ loan on studio time from the meager $1/CD that they get from sales? Why does the record company take 90% of profit AND force the artist to pay them back? Oh yeah. That's why we hate the RIAA in the first place.
Where's the AC troll that blames China for everything when you need him?
say I download a madonna song... It's worth the 3 seconds it will take me to click on the link, that I saw browsing for another song, to get it and listen to it once, but its not worth 99 cents on itunes... if I had to pay 99 cents, there is no way I would get it...
But on iTunes they have extremely high quality previews at a reasonable length that allow you to determine whether or not you'd want to spend 99cents. You're piracy is still wrong.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
But the record companies are still making a profit. File sharing may be costing them 'potential' profits, but it is not causing them to lose money. They aren't operating at a loss, they're still covering their expenses and then some, and file sharing isn't costing them money.
This has been a test. Had this been a real emergency, we would have fled in terror and you would not have been informed.
Do they still have it? Yes.
Sorry to "take issue with the word 'theft'", but it is significant, both in a legal and moral sense. Legally, theft is defined as taking something with the intent to permanently deprive the owner of it, therefore downloading music is not theft. It is copyright infringement, which is a very different legal concept.
Whether or not downloading music actually deprives the record companies of potential earnings is also far less clear than they would have us believe. It is only depriving them of earnings if the downloader would otherwise have bought the CD.
From personal experience, I think the vast majority of illegal downloading is in circumstances where the downloader would not have bought the CD anyway, either because they consider it too expensive, or because they were downloading it simply to try it out, on the chance it might be good. In some cases, they like it go on to buy the CD (I have certainly done this several times).
You can bet some lawyers and desk jocks is busy padding themselves in the back for their "aggressive enforcements of copyrights" that "resulted" in the boost...
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
What is sad is that the Guy who runs our local indy music store Gave me 6 (six) cd's full of MP3s when I asked him "what new stuff do you have?"
He said he just down loads stuff like every one else because the RIAA only cares about themselves not the industry (the whole chain, from artists to retailer) as a whole...
I just laughed... then loaded them onto my new ipod.
dude, if you zoom into the gray area very close, you'll see that all aras are indeed black and white. They're so small and are so closely packed together that the overall effect that you get is one bigger gray area. As usual, it's not really complecated, people just fuss over their own egos.
Do you now have it? Yes.
Did you take it without permission? Yes.
Did you see the sign? Yes.
Did you understand the sign? Yes.
Did you drink from the "Whites Only" water fountain? Yes.
It's yet another to understand all of this and still believe that you're not doing anything wrong.
Yeah, that's called civil disobedience. Happy Birthday to You should be public domain by now. Sharing copyrighted files without making a profit only became illegal seven years ago when the No Electronic Theft Act was signed into law. By comparison, prohibition lasted 14 years.
Don your Elliot Ness attire. Keep busting those average Joes. Personally, I hope your kind stays the course. I hope RIAA legal activity mushrooms. Once you piss off enough regular people, this becomes a campaign issue and the majority is clearly not on your side. Go RIAA GO! :-)
Wow - it's a pity you weren't around when they decided to build those damn profit-stealing things called libraries.
You would've shown them, right?
Without actually confronting pirates because pirates are scary ...arrrgg. In fact, Pirates would kick there F'in ass back to twatville, California. (where ever that is.)
Don't make me take this parrot off my shoulder...!!!!!!!
The government which is strong enough to protect you from everything is strong enough to take everything from you.
What an incredibly compelling response, however, since it is RIAA making the claim of harm, it's up to RIAA to provide the evidence to back up their assertion. Are you suggesting I simply take their word?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
A person/entity has the right to the earnings from its labor; they do not belong to society to meet some vague notion of a "greater good". Society might be enrichened if Jimmy Buffet performed concerts with no admission charge, but the decision to do that is his. It might benefit the "greater good" if Oracle gave away their database, but it is their choice to do so. Frank Lloyd Wright built homes that many consider to be great works of art, but he definately did not do so for free.
The creator of the work, or the entity that funded its creation and gained control over it, has the right to decide how others may use it. The controller may decide that all are free to appreciate it for no charge, or may set a price which individuals are free to choose to pay or not use the item. But society at large is not free to declare that it wants access to a given item for free and therefore take control (or possession) of the item from its owner or creator (emminent domain notwithstanding).
If you choose to create paintings and give them away, write GPL code, or provide free medical assistance to others, more power to you; I think it's great. But don't try to insist that all others also do so, or insist that one answer fits all circumstances.
Bother, said Pooh, as he called in an air strike.
On the other hand, what about people who _would_ pay 99 cents were the copyright infringement option not availible? They certainly represent lost sales due to piracy. Of course, even if you wouldn't pay for the product ever, that doesn't mean that it is right or lawful to get it for free. That is a seperate issue completely. Just because a certain movie doesn't appeal to me, does that make it fair to sneak into a theater and watch it. Does it make it fair to tape it while I'm there anyway and give copies to my friends?
====
Crudely Drawn Games
It's now clear and obvious (as it always was in spite of the FUD), that the intent of the music and motion picture industry (and the larger media conglomerates that own and manage them) has never been to prevent piracy. In fact it's not even about maximizing profits.
The behavior is perfectly consistent with the abuses against all IP being waged by corporate entities and their legal minions, in the pitched battle to own, control, restrict, and monopolize all human knowlege, invention, and the freedom to create. In a world that has substantively shifted to an information economy, the owner and controller of all IP is king.
We're all quick becoming pawns in a war between human freedom and self determination, and corporate design. The science of shaping opinion, controlling the masses, and disinforming entire nations for fun and profit is run riot directly over the ethical and social designs of our forefathers. We are confronted with the conundrum of the successful operation that kills the patient, and in this scenario, you and I are the patient. Either, collectively as a people, we get some backbone, and a whole lot more intelligence, or we can expect to obsolete ourselves in the next several decades.
This is simply one more expression of our own ignorance, the worst of our animal nature, run amock. The beast that blindly grabs for the reins of all human enterprise is without foresight, mind numbingly stupid, infinitely self absorbed, and manned by men with the conscience of politicians. It's up to us (that would be not only the person writing these words, but also the people reading these words), to lay down new laws, build new barriers to barbarism, and set the stage for the next 200 years of human development. The alternative, is a furture shaped a lot like the fossil record for all of us naked apes.
Genda
St John is clearly discussing DRM in the above passage of revelations. The consequence is clear. All those who us longhorn will be dooming their souls to an eternity of torment!
Take heed! Only through the words of the great prophet Torvalds can salvation come! Suffer thee not the DMCA, for that path leads to damnation!
Considering how many times copyight has been extended I think enough has been robbed from the public domain that all agreements are off.
I'm just curious, what is your code of ethics based upon? I don't see there being an absolute right, and an absolute wrong... for me, it's more or less the golden rule... I'm alright with others taking my creations (as long as they don't hinder my abilities to use it) and encourage it. If you go and take your neighbors lexus, he can't use it, but if you were to make an exact replica, without taking anything from anyone, I'd be perfectly happy with it... however, if you were willing to pay 50,000 for a Lexus, and you didn't because you could make a copy, then you would be depriving someone of something they would otherwise have...
WANNAWIKI Wannawiki WannaWiki WANNAWIKI!
On the other hand, what about people who _would_ pay 99 cents were the copyright infringement option not availible? They certainly represent lost sales due to piracy.
They do indeed, I wouldn't/couldn't argue that. As far as the theater example... what's wrong with you sneaking in and seeing it? (assuming the theater didn't sell out, and you didnt' cause a mess) you wouldn't be depriving anyone of anything, and giving yourself something that will kill a couple of hours, when you would've just been typing on slashdot =)
I see the point, but, I'm of the belief that the freer things are, the better... if I make something, I feel anyone else can use it to be entertained by it, learn from it, whatever, as long as my ability to use it isn't hindered... but, I also don't see the issue as a black or white issue... whereas others are willing to label things absolutely right or absolutely wrong... and I don't have anything to base those absolute values off of.
WANNAWIKI Wannawiki WannaWiki WANNAWIKI!
Why? a) because I can, and b) because the real CDs are getting cheaper.
At least they seem cheaper to me. I don't remember "$9.97 Tuesdays" a few years ago, and $9.97 doesn't mean as much to me as it used to.
So, is my "a" behaviour, helping my "b" behavior become more affordable? I dunno, but I am sure the "b" behaviour contributes to the %2.9 gain in sales.
I wouldn't have done it without the "a" behaviour, however. And I sure as hell won't buy any CD's if "they" hassle me for my "a" behavior.
[Yes, I know I randomly spell in American and English]
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
This drivel gets modded up as insightful?
So, basically, what you're saying is this: You think that you have the right to determine whether or not you should pay for someone else's IP, AFTER you've already garnered the benefit of it? Or, are you saying that you think that you have the right to benefit from it for free, because you think that it is crap?
Ah, I get it - either stance is in strict accordance with the beliefs of the pro-piracy (Whoops, I'm sorry: Pro-copyright infringement - I need to learn to be more politically correct around here) faction here on Slashdot, and one of them got mod points.
"...on a sidenote, I've spent more on CD's this year, than any year prior, and I made less than the year prior (by a good margin)"
So? What's your point? You spent more money on non-essentials this year than last, even though you made less money? Are we supposed to congratulate you? Feel sorry for you? What?
Finally, I note with no small amount of cynicism that the URL you link to is "Copyright Matthew Minix 2004". If you are the copyright holder, then that's more than a little hypocritical, don't you think?
I swear, it's posts such as yours that force me to believe in God - there's no way they could happen by chance. It HAS to be a test for the rest of us, there's just no other explanation.
And I think, with some re-wording, that I just made up my new sig... so I suppose I should thank you for the inspiration.
On my first trip to Hong Kong in 1967, I found that it was common for the record stores to make a tape with recordings of customer's selected albums on it.
For a 1800ft Reel-to-reel tape, you would select about five albums. The store would record the albums onto the tape. You would pay for the blank tape and about $1 or $2 US for each album's recording. The albums cost about $5 US in Hong Kong at that time.
This was quite common and accepted business practice at every record store except the poorest, smallest ones. I never realized that it wasn't standard practice world-wide until I came to America.
Watching music TV is stealing too, if you don't sit through the ads.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
He was recently taken out by the Chinese Mafia... Apparently they didn't like his preachings
"Copyright Matthew Minix 2004". If you are the copyright holder, then that's more than a little hypocritical, don't you think?
Yes. My only excuse is habit, from when I took web design in class...
So? What's your point? You spent more money on non-essentials this year than last, even though you made less money?
My point is that this "infringement" is helping the people getting infringed on. Sure, I didn't buy every song I downloaded, but I did buy everyone I kept.
s: You think that you have the right to determine whether or not you should pay for someone else's IP, AFTER you've already garnered the benefit of it? Or, are you saying that you think that you have the right to benefit from it for free, because you think that it is crap?
I've got a question, do you always watch the commercials on tv? Always let banner ads load? never change radio stations when one changes to a commercial? These are all things that the different forms of media count on to get their money... they figure that some people will switch off, but because of this, they lose money... Though, I'll admit, there aren't a lot of people yelling "Watch commercials or die!" though there are some, but, you can't please everyone, all the time... I've just chosen to displease a slightly larger portion of the population than you, which I can live with.
WANNAWIKI Wannawiki WannaWiki WANNAWIKI!
Once I speak a word, and intend for it to be heard, I cannot charge a fee for those who hear it. It is NOT property.
I dunno, maybe because you are trespassing on private property? Certainly you have particular terms to decide who can and can't enter your home. They have terms to decide who can and can't enter their theaters.
Simply because you would put form those terms for the use of your creations doesn't mean everyone would or should. A creative work always begins life as a piece of private property, and it is up to the owner of that property to set the terms by which the rest of us can use it.
====
Crudely Drawn Games
Now some non-zero percentage of people who justify copyright infringement by saying "I wouldn't have bought it anyway" are not being honest. There are actual earnings being deprived in that case.
Yeah, earnings obtained with overhyped reviews and public misinformation.
"WTF? Is this it? No way, I'm asking for a refund!"
"Sorry, you opened the package. No refunds."
THAT kind of earnings.
You know, it's probably too late for mods to see this anyways, but hopefully you receive notifications of slashdot replies in your email, so at least someone will hear me. I've been dying to say this for a while now:
My downloading days peaked just a little under two years ago. Most of what I downloaded was two to three songs by bands that:
a) i saw open at a show that had a headline band i was seeing
b) are on the same (independent) label as a band i like
c) was recommended from a friend who enjoys the same type of music as me
If I enjoyed the 2 or 3 songs, I went out to the local indie record store and bought a CD or two of theirs. Usually those CDs were between $8 and $11. Not the $20 crud you pay for at FYE. I probably bought 2 CDs on average per week. Then, as my school started to frown more upon filesharing (read: music swapping), I phased it out. I have since not downloaded much at all, because I couldn't sample bands. I have also ceased all purchases of CDs, because I don't have any clue what I'm buying. Would you buy a car without a test-drive?
So ends the story of how the recording industry lost my vote (read: checkbook). It's a sad one, too, because it was mostly indie labels that got my money.
Audio cds would cost damn near nothing because the market is capable of providing audio for free, 99 times out of 100. P2P piracy is a perfectly good example of market efficiency; self interested agents finding the lowest cost of goods, in this case at no cost. Sellers seeking to maximize their profits can risk being the 1 out of 100 by selling their goods at a higher cost than zero, but their time and resources could be better spent getting them a higher ROI elsewhere. The RIAA seems to think that the equilibreum is nowhere near what it is, so we instead get 30$ cds and 40$ dvds(still!? I thoguht they were slapped on the wrist for that!), with a government order in some cases that you must purchase media from the big companies, or not consume at all(unless you're lucky enough to know how to get independant music, not always as easy as it sounds). Governments and industry should subsidize P2P, if anything, in return for fscking up the market by attacking it for so long. Piracy is perfectly fair, so long as markets are perfectly fair. If those in the music industry cannot make as much profit as they desire, then they must find a new industry. You do not necessarily have the right to excessive profits in a free market.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Those previews are great. I just download them and loop them until they go for about 3 to 5 minutes. You can't tell the difference with a lot of these songs. With some of them, I just rename the file and it is like I got a new song. It is GREAT.
it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
"Yeah, that's called civil disobedience."
That's funny. I don't remember Gandhi, or MLK hiding behind any P2P programs.
This must be the "new and improved", "civil disobedience" model (Pat. Pending). The one that causes sales of ones enemies to go up, and even more of our rights to disappear.
So here's what I and the American public have to say to you. STOP HELPING US!
I don't think you read my post so I will shout my point at you: COPYRIGHT HAS BECOME MEANINGLESS. YOU CANNOT SNEEZE WITHOUT VIOLATING COPYRIGHT. Copyright law treats all works equally. You only seem to think it applies if the work has commercial value. Guess what? Even though you posted anonymously, your post is under the full protection of copyright for 95 years! If you can tell me why that makes sense, then I will happily let you go back to your own little world.
Did you take it without permission? Yes.
copying something is not "taking" it.
You can justify your crime all you want,
copying something is not a crime.
but it still boils down to your decision to deprive someone of potential earnings.
Thats all it boils down to?
Then you would have no complaint against the poor making copies for their personal use would you?
How about someone making copies of music just for archival purposes to insure that 70 years from now when the copyright expires it WILL be available to the public domain, no matter what whacky DRM schemes are invented by them would would deprive the public of its RIGHTFUL property?
It's one thing to not understand this. It's another thing to take issue with the word "theft" simply because you're not physically depriving anyone of anything.
I take issue with the word "theft" because "Copyright infringement" does not fit within that definition.
It's yet another to understand all of this and still believe that you're not doing anything wrong.
maybe so.. but as YOU know. copyright infringement is not theft and it is not piracy.
you may as well call it rape, murder or terrorism because copyright infringement is ALSO none of those things.
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
Pirates of the Carribean DVD... $18.
Pirates of the Carribean Soundtrack... $18.
That is why few purchase CDs anymore.
It is somewhat unfortunate that we cannot have this debate without these ad hominem attacks. Try to keep it civil: someone who opposes the induce act is not automatically downloading things and therefore a thief, and someone who uses a P2P application is not automatically violating copyright.
"Potential earnings" is an incredibly nebulous concept anyway. Suppose a town has a single CD shop, and a second one is about to open. That second shop is about the deprive the first one of a lot of potential earnings, yet their actions are completely legal.
It is also utterly unclear to me why downloads should be counted towards "lost potential earnings" instead of "free advertisement". Despite the ever-growing use of broadband, the sales of CD's are growing! Doesn't that mean that despite having the opportunity of getting all their music for free, most people are still essentially inclined to do the right thing and pay for their music?
Sounds like the RIAA should be going after the real pirates, not little Susie or Grandma.
You do understand that they think they'd increase sales with, for example, 5% if they didn't try to stop piracy?
And who's to say they aren't right? Neither you or I have seen how much they'd sell without piracy.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
The recording industry cut production by 20%, hacked away all their low-volume artists, yet saw an 11% gain in sales during the HEIGHT of the Napster boom.
We never heard an explanation for that. Hmmm.
No one questions the RIAA on these issues. The big labels cut all their dead weight, low-volume artists, cut production, yet saw an increase in sales?
I have a friend that works for a niche label, and he saw the changes coming, and was happy to sign some of these lower-volume artists as it strengthened their catalog. Some of these artists were considered out-of-reach for the niche labels. And many of these labels saw their sales skyrocket, compared to what they had been before. Admitted, they weren't going to compete with Sony or the other big labels.
Yet the RIAA claims that they were losing billions due to pirates... when the worker bees at the labels tell us that they use the P2P info to see what's interesting to the listeners, and they report increased sales on those artists? Smells like serious smoke and mirrors by the RIAA. Face it. The RIAA is using this situation to try and dictate legislation rather than adapt.
I think that, more than anything, we've seen a lull in "talent". Face it. We've not seen a Michael Jackson or a Nirvana. No blockbusters out there... and it's been awhile. Justin Timberlake? Britney Spears? Ashlee Simpson? Forget it. No talent hacks with fantastic marketing juggernauts behind them. That's it. They are products of technology. Lip-sync and auto-tuners. Fancy dancing with a lot of costumes. There's so little that's interesting music. REM and Dave Matthews haven't had knockout material in a few years. U2 is ok, but not what they were in the late '80s until the mid '90s. Name a rapper that's tearing up the charts? Hmmm. Still thinking...
The copyright infringement we're talking about here is not civil disobedience. Civil disobedience is not just the act of non-violently disobeying unjust laws. True civil disobedience also requires that you break the law publicly and accept the resulting legal consequences. People who practice civil disobedience usually call attention to themselves breaking the law and insist that law enforcement arrest them and enforce the unjust law. When people are punished for breaking an obviously immoral law, the theory goes, the government and/or society will be shamed into changing it.
If the law is broken secretly or the lawbreaker attempts to get out of the punishment, the powerful moral logic of civil disobedience breaks down. It becomes easy to accuse the protester of breaking the law just for personal gain rather than for the greater good. If he or she breaks the law openly from the beginning and requests enforcement of the unjust law, he or she is immunized from this line of attack.
If you want to practice civil disobedience against current copyright law, you should copy some tracks (like Happy Birthday) that you believe you have a moral right to own and you should alert the authorities and the media. Force the RIAA and the FBI to arrest you. Accept the ridiculous fines and jail terms that come with the crime, and thereby show everyone the ludicrous and immoral nature of the law.
Don't, however, copy 100GB of songs off of P2P networks secretly and call it civil disobedience. It's not. It's just lawbreaking.
For my part I stopped buying CDs when the RIAA started suing their customers and also stopped buying DVDs when the MPAA followed their lead.
Even if the MAFIA paid the lawmakers to make BLACKMAILING legal, would still be IMMORAL.
And don't forget to let the artists know that you would really like to buy their music but don't want to support an industry that rather sues their customers. At least under german law this could turn the tables as it gives the artists the right to cancel their contracts.
But if the mortgage company was the one paying your sallery and they were making record profits whilst paying you a pittance, you might have a complaint.
Do you also eat at restaurants and not pay because you felt the food wasn't that good afterall?
while true;do echo -e -n "\033[s\n\033[u\134_\033[B";done
One could argue that p2p sharing kept the momentum high during the slump rather than differentiating interests while disposable income was reduced. So now the RIAA still has a willing consumer base rather than a new generation of jigsaw puzzle enthusisasts whose misdshare they'd have to fight all over again. (think dvd home theater consumers... isn't mpaa riaa's greatest competitor?) ;-)
That's smart spin, ain't it?
Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
Publicity won't buy you anything to eat. It's moot.
while true;do echo -e -n "\033[s\n\033[u\134_\033[B";done
Is it really? When will we run out of carrots, then? Potatoes? Beef? Some proof, please.
while true;do echo -e -n "\033[s\n\033[u\134_\033[B";done
>Did you pay for it? No.
>Do you now have it? Yes.
>Did you take it without permission? Yes.
As allready pointed out, you did not "take" anything, you created something new, which happened to be identical to something else. That is not taking!!
If you pay for it or not is actually quite irrelevant. As is the permission for you geting it is also in much irrelevant. I assume you talk about the permission of the copyright holder. However, the copyrigth holder typically only control the very first distribution. So if I buy a book, I can then give it to you (without you paying) and without having the permission of the copyright holder. There is no copyright infringement in such a case (we didn't create a new copy), despite you managung to check "yes" to whatever you want, INCLUDING depriving someone of a potential income.
>You can justify your crime all you want, but it
>still boils down to your decision to deprive
>someone of potential earnings.
Sorry, in most cases and countries it would NOT be a crime! In addition, depriving someone of a potential earning is NOT illegal to do or we could do nothing since basically everything one do deprives someone of an income. See the example above for a good case.
Copyright is all about creating of something new, not taking something (copyright also includes things such as public performance but lets leave that aside for now). You create a new copy of something. This is not theft amd theft can hardly be applied to it, since you have not taken anything. You made a new fence for example, admitedly identical to other existing fences but still a new one. No one will come screaming that you stole anything, they still have their fence for one. This is why theft laws doesn't work on cases were you copy something, it is NOT taking, it is about creating something new.
That is one of the reasons one need copyright laws, or we could just stick to theft laws. Copyright laws dictate that for some things, you can't create a new copy of something unless enough time has passed since the original was first created. The issue of money and payment is NOT an issue, the person who hold the copyright can give away his work for free, you can STILL not copy it since it would be copyright infringement, despite no earnings deprived! There are excepctions in most countries so that you can under correct situation actually make copies without creating a copyright infringement (and despite it being a potential loss of earning).
No matter how one twist it, trying to compare it to theft and trying to set up criterias similar to the result of a theft, it won't be the same, and there will always be many cases and trivial cases were it does NOT work, so why doing it all the time? It only leads to the wrong conclusions, like depriving someone of income is a criteria for copyright infringement, it has NOTHING to do with copyright infringement.
So use the criterias for copyright infringement when you want to decide if there is one, and don't claim that it is identical to theft in some cases and then start to make comparions to theft (typically using completely other criterias) to see if it is a copyright infringement.
Did you pay for it? No.
Do you now have it? Yes.
Did you take it without permission? Yes.
Does everyone who previously had it still have it? Yes.
Has anyone lost anything you have now? No.
Are any potential earnings lost because you have it now? WTF are potential earnings? All of the national income that could be spent on CDs?
Taken literally, no they have not lost potential earnings - I can still buy the CD and still have the same amount of money.
Otherwise - it depends: they have not lost any if I wasn't going to buy the CD anyway, they have not lost any if I was but spend the money on another of their CDs now, they have not if I decide I like these songs and buy the CD, they actually have increased potential earnings if I wasn't going to buy it but like it so much that I buy a couple of CDs of this artist, they have lost potential earnings if I was going to buy it but don't, and therefore spend less money on CDs now.
And that last thing is, as much research shows, not exactly common. People who download lots of MP3 often still are among the biggest spenders on music. Actual (not potential) CD sales are up.
Furthermore, you obviously can't steal "potential income". Potential income doesn't exist yet and isn't guaranteed to exist in the future.
So what all of this has to do with theft is beyond me. It's copyright infringement, and although it's nominally "wrong" it's not very serious - on a par with driving through a red light because there's no traffic there, as far as I'm concerned.
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
Because, you know, it's such a hotly pursued statistic.
Anyway. . . The RIAA, it just struck me, isn't about what they say they are about. --They may THINK they are what they say they are, but I say they aren't and that what they think they are and what they really are, are different, see?
Just keeping people stressed out. Like having a nice big tap stuck in a maple tree, drawing off the sweeeeeet sugar water of low-level human misery.
Yes, I am out of coffee filters. Why do you ask?
-FL
And not go after anyone.. as obviously they are getting an advantage out of p2p sharing..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
We see this same sort of thing every year at this time. The first year it was all cool because it could be pointed out that the RIAA is full of shit on P2P file sharing of music. The second year just reinforced it. But at this point isn't it sort of redundant? Their sales grow every year, wh00h00!
The Farewell Tour II
... because no American study would be allowed by the RIAA and they would make sure that the truth would never be known... certianly not in a court of law.
Tell me... how many people are in jail because the RIAA lied and used it's massive corporate power to bend the courts to thier will?
How many thousands of supeonas did the courts hand out to criminalize and jail people for doing something that injured no one? Typical Americans.
Isn't this an indictment of the entire MP3 saga?
Helloooo???
The definition is clear. No parrots, eye patches or dodgy files are needed to be a real pirate.
In soviet russia stale jokes recycle you!
Everytime I read articles about fake goods and China, I try to find information about the importation of these goods. The articles always say that they are shipped to the states or exported to other countries. That they aren't checked.
Well, considering drugs take up far less space than 10,000 golf clubs or whatever, I find it difficult to believe that they just 'come into' the states or other developed countries. When a report says that only a small majority of containers are checked, what are is their basis for this? I'd believe it more if it was the customs department saying this, but its not, its a reporter who has it in his best interests to make it seem larger than it is. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I'm willing to bet less than 10-15% of Harry Potter DVD's are fake in the US/UK.
I've chinese friends and they tell me that pirated or counterfeit goods are extremely popular in Asia. However, while talking to them, they agreed that the same goods don't seem to make it across the water. Yes, some goods do, but as for DVD's and CD's i've never seen a pirated one for sale. I know people that download music and sometimes burn it to CD. Since its accessible for most people to burn their own or wanting a legitimate copy, I find the impression hard to believe.
I do think however that P2P downloads of songs encourage music listening and there is a subconscious desire to 'legitimise' oneself. I myself have downloaded music then I've purchased it later, theres even more than a couple of CD's i've not even opened, since I mainly listen to music on the pc.
You aren't fighting for fundamental human rights here. You simply don't want to pay for music, and are trying to defend copyright infringement by comparing it to an unquestionably just cause.
That you would invoke the name of Dr. King in defense of your petty wants is an insult to real freedom fighters.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
You think that you have the right to determine whether or not you should pay for someone else's IP, AFTER you've already garnered the benefit of it?
Yes. What's wrong with that?
Are you suggesting that people should have to pay money to someone for something before they know if they like it or not?
So remember, before you buy that house, you're not allowed to go look inside it! Or the car - you're not allowed to test drive it.
Remember, by your logic, if you do, you're a hypocrite!
"Yeah, that's called civil disobedience."
Oh please, that is so lame. What next, because people J-walk, even though they know it's illegal, you'll call it civil disobedience? How about : they don't think it's a big deal, and doubt they'll get caught.
People "pirate" music because they don't think it's a big deal, and they don't think they'll get caught, not because they are protesting high CD prices and copyright law. Why do you have to pretend that they belong to some big cause? Most people don't give a crap about copyright law. Maybe you do it as a form of civil disobedience, but don't make your gang look bigger than it really is.
All that, and you seem to have overlooked one fantastic lesson. You complain about people who make all this money while robbing artists, then trivialize it when it's one or two or ten?
In that very long rant, the one thing I heard over and over was "screw the man cuz he's got money."
When you perpeptuate that legacy content IN ANY WAY you are not "fucking them in the ear" you are just helping preserve their power. Those direct payments you claim you'd be OK with? It ain't gonna happen so long as the artist is tied to one of the old school majors - and pirating their content only sends the message to the artists that hey, there really IS something to be had from this, cuz I couldn't even give away my shit before they hyped me on MTV.
Youyr hypocrisy is fucking your own self - and every artist who longs to be free, and every geek who embraces freedom.
Cheating corporations isn't screwing them. Cheating corporations only proves to the corporations - and to the lawyers, and to the public when it comes out on the news that you were cheating them - that they really do have something of value. Hey, if it had no value why would you cheat themn out of it?
If you want to "fuck'em in the ear" stop cheating at the game. Leave them to their game and go elsewhere. Go offshore where thousands of great artists go unknown in the US. Go to Magnatune where artists actually get paid. Freedom is not won from being a hang-around-the-fort-indian.
Logic is lost on this generation... I'm moving to Mars.
-mkb
The courts have no problem identifying potential revenue lost from slander or libel; the courts also have no problem recognizing potential revenue lost from corporate espionage.
In this case, you are breaking a law (it is a crime in some places) or you are ignoring the Constitutional protections afforded to the folks that produced it. I don't believe for a minute that everyone (or even a large percentage) of the folks that pirate music wouldn't have actually bought it if it weren't available for free online. How many albums did singer xxxxxxxx sell? If online piracy weren't available, I believe that number would certainly have been up.
Copyright infringement is more serious than you realize. Your ignorance doesn't excuse you, but it means that you're short on "real world understanding." There are folks trying to earn a living by creating something useful or enjoyable to the rest of the world. In the rare event that they succeed in creating a marketable product (a song, an art piece, software, etc.) it is a terrible pity that you believe the rest of the world should just take it for free because it won't cost anyone anything.
I know very few people who still buy music. Everyone I know downloads it for free. The occasional CD purchases I make (or that my friends make) are from artists that we really support. Even then, those are few and far between.
You probably have to go to the right place to find copied cds etc in the U.S. When I was a kid, it was the flea market. You could buy a cassette of Bon Jovi Slippery When Wet at the store for $8, or $4 in the flea market. But it was still a case of you get what you pay for.
Sound quality was slightly less, and the flea market tapes would have a color photocopy of the visible artwork and nothing else on the inside, so you got no lyrics etc. Thus 99% of my rack of cassettes from the time are real.
Now the digital sound on copied cds should be perfect, but I bet they still cut corners, which I don't care for.
If you want to practice civil disobedience against current copyright law, you should copy some tracks (like Happy Birthday) that you believe you have a moral right to own and you should alert the authorities and the media.
I've done step 1; now how do I involve the media, which has a financial interest in keeping this hush-hush?
That said, if you are paying $2 for a CD that should cost $20, then that should be enough notice to suggest to you that you're not getting the real deal.
Or that I'm buying 10 or more used CDs at a pawn shop that offers a 10 for $20 deal.
Maybe when DVD-A or SACD takes off we'll see a big spike in music sales too.
I'll have to see an SACD Walkman before that happens.
Other than the economy was in a recession and CD's are very much a luxury item. If I am even concerned about if I will have a job next month, I am more likely not to spend money on frivoulous items like CDs. Even if there was no P2P downloading, one could still just listen to the radio.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
There seems to be a trend of packaging DVDs along with CDS - something you cant buy on iTunes or easily pirate. Witness the recent U2 and Goo Goo Dolls albums. Thats what the record industry need to do to drive sales - innovate.
But, take two bands of similar style and quality (who are therefore likely to have fan bases that largely overlap), and price can be a very significant factor.
Promotion is a bigger one. Take a band on a major label vs. an independent band with roughly the same sound; the major label band can move more product at a higher price because more people know that the major label band exists.
I think the biggest problem here is the fact that the member music companies of the RIAA has pretty much set more or less a pretty specific price range for new album-length audio CD's.
There's one problem here, though: the RIAA set this price range so high that it has created an economic incentive the circumvent these prices. Why do you think the original Napster became such a big hit--customers were tired to paying up to US$18 per album-length CD and also found that online stores only subtracted a few dollars from the brick and mortar store price. A few stores priced their new-release CD's at around US$10-US$11, but these were more or less loss leaders intended to drive customers to the store hoping they'll buy the more expensive non-discounted CD's.
That's why the iTunes Music Store became such a huge success. You can buy essentially a full album for under US$10 (without waiting for a sale!) using downloaded AAC music files that could be easily burned on CD-R discs.
The RIAA needs to stop the vast overpricing of their product and reduce the price of a new album-length CD to under US$12, which will cut substantially the economic incentive to pirate music.
Well, according to the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle, B must have altered A's sandwich to some degree to copy it, so B should be charged with vandalism at the very least. Plus, B's copy might taste funny.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Sounds like the RIAA should be going after the real pirates, not little Susie or Grandma.
I wonder if slashdot will ever figure out that Susie and Grandma are "real pirates" too.
This sounds so much like OJ's search for the "real killers" it's not even funny.
-j
while the distinction you're making is correct, you are in fact depriving the copyright holder of something - his legal right to control the distribution of his work. Copyright gives him a limited licence to control non-fair use distribution and copying of the work - without that licence there is far less incentive for many to produce the work. The person copying it has decided that they rather than the copyright holder should have that right - since the licence is exclusive, if someone takes it, they have in fact deprived the copyright holder of something.
This isn't to justify many of the questionable parts of copyright law or the RIAA's "logic" (or the inconsistency - taking artists' and users' copyright privileges is not theft but copying the music is) - but it is salient to note that people who copy music and set it out for mass distribution are doing something which fits the definition of "theft".
I wouldn't buy CDs from little Susie or Grandma, if I were you. Little Susie's reputation was shot some years ago, and Grandma suffered a tragic holiday accident, putting her out of business for a while.
<sorry>
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
OT, but try www.epitonic.com if you haven't already. I'm pretty much in the same boat you are- I had no idea what to buy now that I've cut out my music downloading. I find a lot of bands I like through epitonic now.
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
That's the most ludircous thing I've ever heard! You must be joking, or an ass clown, I can't figure out which.
checking for libvirus... no
ERROR, libvirus.so not found, terminating
Referring to a "you" is the same as referring to "a given person" or whatever. You're way off-base by claiming my argument is name-calling.
If I spend time, money, and talent to create a song, you have absolutely no right to take that from me without my permission. That's the point.
Free advertisement doesn't mean anything if it doesn't improve sales. Do you download the entire CD before you buy it? Do you buy every CD you download?
Radio is free advertising (free to consumers). Videos are free advertising (again, to consumers). They produce quantifiable sales. Downloading doesn't.
So what if ales are growing? That doesn't have anything to do with piracy being right or wrong.
Is that also why you are saying this:
If I spend time, money, and talent to create a song, you have absolutely no right to take that from me without my permission.
Because it sure makes it sound like you and I are having a personal fight here. Apparently "you" produced some song, and "I" stole it from you. Loading the debate like this is just not a very nice way to have a discussion. Admittedly that may be too much to expect from slashdot.
Free advertisement doesn't mean anything if it doesn't improve sales
And what was the article saying again...? Yes, it said sales were up!
Do you download the entire CD before you buy it? Do you buy every CD you download?
***I*** don't listen to any of the crap the RIAA puts out. What your unnamed third-person CD thief does, I have no idea - all my friends have large CD collections so it appears I don't know any thieving scum.
Radio is free advertising (free to consumers). Videos are free advertising (again, to consumers). They produce quantifiable sales. Downloading doesn't.
Care to prove that? Is there some way that any single sale can be tracked towards whatever form of advertisement induced it?
So what if ales are growing? That doesn't have anything to do with piracy being right or wrong.
That's odd, since "potential economic damage" is being claimed as the reason that piracy is wrong. If there is no "potential economic damage", how exactly does piracy hurt anyone? Is there an artist being crushed to death by piles of money, somewhere?
Ok, let's avoid your off-topic claims that my argument hinges on you and me personally involved in the scenario.
Person A invents something using his or her own money, time, and talent. Person A then offers that for sale.
Person B finds a way to obtain that without paying for it, but also without depriving anyone of any physical asset. Person A was not compensated for the access, use, or enjoyment of the invention.
This is wrong because Person A relies on income from that invention. Person B has lessened the value of Person A's invention.
Do you not understand this, or are you simply being a devil's advocate? I have a hard time believing that someone who functions in society can really think there's nothing wrong with taking advantage of the creators out there.
As for the claims regarding free advertising, I already said (but you ignored) the fact that increases in sales are not necessarily related to increased downloading. Correlation is not causation and all that.
Finally, what you're still not understanding is that piracy is wrong even if it hurts nobody.
Maybe you don't notice them. A good copy is dificult to notice. With say golf clubs, using a lesser material is how they save the money (and how they were able to tell the difference) with CDs you don't need to use lesser CDs, paper, printing, etc the cost isn't in the item rather the information; which is as everyone probably realizes easy enough for even grandma to copy. Have you caught all the talk about fake flea medicines for pets and how even ones from your vet aren't trustworthy lately? Or the killer fake botox in florida?
But leave U2's Verigo[sic] alone.
No problem here.
My Greatest Heist - Muisc partly inspired by the unbeatable Qwantz
What the fuck? When you hear a song on the radio are you stealing it because the artist lost the potential profit? What's the difference between that and downloading it? That you can hear it whenever you want when it's a file on your computer? So what? What if I hear the song on the radio so many times that I memorize it? I can hear the song whenever I want and I didn't pay a cent, I must be a theif! What about if I learn to play it on my own instruments? I'm such a bastard! How dare I enjoy their song for free!
Fuck off. Go take this "what you're doing is wrong" bullshit and cram it. Here's a bombshell for you: I don't care if what I'm doing is "wrong" or not. As far as I'm concerned, if anybody doesn't want me to download their music I'm doing it out of spite. That is, I don't enjoy music to be the artist's friend, so you can take this whole issue of what's moral or not and masturbate with it.
Why don't you join the police force and fight the good fight against all us heinous criminals? I'm sure that'd give you a hardon, you self-righteous asshole.
My Greatest Heist - Muisc partly inspired by the unbeatable Qwantz
I understand what you mean, and I agree that inventors/artists may lose money in specific individual cases. What I doubt is whether that is really the case here, though. Just look at the number of people who have access to broadband now. They can all go and download all the CD's they want for free - it is so easy anyone can do it. And yet those people still buy CD's, and sales are up. That makes me think the situation may not be as grim as is claimed: the "lessening of value" that is claimed is not so severe that it stops artists from producing music, or stops inventors from inventing. Perhaps we would have more or better music/inventions if all IP was held sacred by everyone (i.e. there was no piracy whatsoever), but it is equally possible that this would lead to stagnation and cultural decay.
To see why that could happen, consider this: suppose Microsoft had a patent on multitasking or graphical desktops. Do you think we would have seen any version of Windows after, say, 1.0? What reason could they have had to innovate, given this unbreakable grip on the market? So the expiration of IP is itself a reason for innovation.
Coming back to music, I also think the advertising effect is real. Advertising vectors like radio and TV are fine and dandy, but they tend to have the same set of songs throughout the day. By comparison, downloads allows people to get acquainted with a wide variety of unknown artists. Downloading acts as a significant equilizer in this respect, in that it gives unknown artists a platform to show themselves off. Of course, that also decreases the value of any mainstream (radio-advertised) artists, since the amount of money available for entertainment is typically limited in any household. I half suspect that this is the main reason the big CD labels are complaining: not because the total number of CD's sold is shrinking, but rather because their share of the pie is.
I have a hard time believing that someone who functions in society can really think there's nothing wrong with taking advantage of the creators out there.
That's rich, considering that this discussion originally debated mainstream music. If there is one bunch of thieving bastards that "take advantage of creators" it's the big record publishers.
Finally, what you're still not understanding is that piracy is wrong even if it hurts nobody.
On the contrary, I'd argue that "intellectual piracy" offers unique benefits to all of society, because it allows everyone to benefit from new ideas, instead of just the lucky guy who made it to the patent office first. Locking up ideas for twenty years stifles innovation, since once an idea is locked up noone can improve on it either (at least, not without paying someone who had no part in the improvement, and that is assuming he is even interested in that). Some have argued that the industrial revolution was held back twenty years because of a patent on steam engines - imagine where we would be today if that hadn't happened.
Sharing is not wrong, and sharing of ideas enriches both parties involved. Admittedly, this does lessen the chances of any artist or inventor to have one good idea and spend the rest of his life collecting rent and sitting on his butt, but maybe society does not owe him that anyway. Indeed, society appears to have evolved a number of ways to compensate these people for their effort that do not involve long-term taxation, both in commercial form (companies employing inventors who get nothing out of it but their salary) and through universities and other government-sponsored research institutions.
Also, the whole notion of intellectual property is comparatively new. Some of the worlds' most beautiful artworks and music stem from a period where there was no protection whatsoever. And even today, when one can digitally reproduce a Rembrandt or van Gogh to a level that is hard to distinguish from the real thing (at least, fr
I would do that, and for a while I was. But unfortunatly I live in Canada and my government is sane.
:(
So um yes I pirate EVERYTHING but um... it's not illegal
Just read through a ton of posts here. There's one thing no one mentioned.
The RIAA did not just announce increased sales. Nielsen SoundScan did. Last year, SoundScan reported selling about 25 million more records than the RIAA said they shipped to retail. About the same as the year before.
The RIAA does not announce its year-end "statistics" until late Feb. or March, which never address how many records are sold, just how many the factory shipped out, which includes all the copies that went to record clubs, deejays and giveaways.
The truth is that most comercial radio is crap. I spend time listening to web radio looking for whatever peaks my interest. Then I might go to P2P and download as much MP3 from the new found band and listen some more. When I want to make that music part of my permanent collection I will purchase some CD's and Rip to my specifications for my permant collection. The P2P becomes a part of my sampeling tool that I use to see if I actually like the music enough to purchase it.
Paul E. Bahre
RTFC, I didn't say they have a right to money... they have a right to choose to offer that music for a price that you and others are free to pay or to pass on. If people choose to pay their price then they get money; if people decide it isn't worth it then they don't get money. Simple concept; they have the right to the earnings, which in that case amount to zero. But people that choose not to pay the price do not have the right to make a copy of the music to listen to if the artist/owner does not permit it, any more than a company has the right to take GPL code in violation of the license.
Bother, said Pooh, as he called in an air strike.
But only if we stop giving them money.
Who are these "we" you speak of? The RIAA can survive without Slashdot users if it keeps on getting money from the sheeple, especially people under 21 who wouldn't know indie music if it bit them because they're forbidden by law from entering virtually all venues where it is played. Any suggestion of reducing the RIAA's power by reducing demand for its member labels' products has to be backed up with methods of evangelizing to the people who actually buy RIAA labels' products. Remember that listeners in motor vehicles are a captive audience who often have access only to commercial radio, and indie labels generally can't afford to buy a 3-minute spot on commercial radio.