Slashdot Mirror
Challenging Music Downloading Myths
The BBC is reporting on a study by digital music research firm The Leading Question, which found that people who download music from peer to peer networks paid for four and a half times more music than regular music fans. Also that most of these people "are extremely enthusiastic about paid-for services, as long as they are suitably compelling." What is nice is that the BPI welcomed the findings that not all file sharers are actually evil... they still pledged to carry on the 'carrot and stick' approach though.
Because not every bit of music is available with iTunes... If you're looking for music from American artists, then you'll probably find it there, but don't try finding more "local" music or you'll be deceived.
What I truly hate about iTunes though is that they actually have the music I want, but it's only available on their German store, or on their British store, or even sometimes on their US store, but not on the Canadian store, which I am required to use because I live in Canada (global market my ass).
They have the file I want to pay for, but they won't let me pay for it, so guess what? I'm gonna figure out another way to get it, and that other way might not involve payment.
After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
- The Tao of Programming
iTunes is indeed lacking many things. This is not, however Apple's fault. This is because many recording industry folks have yet to license music for download. Often, the contract for producing an album will not allow the recording label to re-sell the product to a third party. The future herein lies in the fact that new artists and music will be iTunes compatible.
As for local music, this will change as apple expands its network of content managers and iTunes will probably end up dealing with the artist directly.
This is perhaps why some albums will never appear in iTunes, the record label wants the boxed cd set to be sold and not the download.
I must mention another alternative, where many good artists are trying something totally different. I am of course talking about Magnatune, where music is not evil. You should really check it out
-if at first you don't succeed, stay the heck away from paragliding.
"Paying for an entire CD with 15 songs off of iTunes: $14.85,"
If you download the whole album (instead of one track at a time) it's only $10, or about $0.67 per song. There is a well-known tool for removing Apple's (intentionally) weak DRM, so that's barely an issue anymore.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
How is downloading music to "test-drive" it any different?
Copyright isn't property and downloading it doesn't take it away from anybody.
If you are going to download illegal music files, at least call it what it really is.... theft
Copyright infringement isn't theft, and anybody who persists in saying that it is is either an idiot or a troll. Dowling vs US, 1985, even the Supreme Court says that it isn't theft. Or try looking in a dictionary, they generally say something along the lines of "the object must be moved, however slightly, from it's original position", or a definition involving taking something, which does not occur in copyright infringement.
These arguments have come up many, many times, and nobody has ever put across a convincing argument as to why I should believe some random stranger on Slashdot about what is and isn't theft above and beyond the dictionary and the Supreme Court.
There are other websites that like Magnatune allows free or low cost music downloads. Some of these are:
Also there's Berklee Shares where you can find free music lessons.
FalconShould there be a Law?