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Alltunes.com Lets Users Download AllofMP3 Songs
Stony Stevenson writes with word that, although AllofMP3.com was shut down by the Russian Government this week, customers from the site who have existing credit can still purchase songs through its downloadable windows desktop and smartphone client, allTunes.com. From the article: "A former AllofMP3.com user, who spoke to Computerworld on the condition of anonymity, purchased songs with his existing credit from the allTunes software client today and experienced no trouble doing so... AllofMP3's six million users will no doubt be delighted they can use their leftover credit to purchase songs, but the site's longevity hangs in the balance. Just days after the Russian Government shut down AllofMP3.com, its sister site, MP3Sparks.com, suffered the same fate."
Or perhaps people are too cheap to buy their music used?!? Buying it used? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of trying to support the band? Say someone buys a CD for $14. They listen to it for a while, then it ends up at a used CD store once they're bored with it. I go in and buy the same CD for $6. The record label still only made that first $14. The only people that gain from used CD sales are used CD stores.
A tiny minority is actually concerned about who is paid. The rest want to have convenient (illegal or not) access to songs, and ripping your own CDs is not convenient enough to many people.
**AA are trying to make it less convenient to download, instead of making it more convenient to rip or otherwise buy legitimately. They are foolish, but they are within their rights — however clumsy they are in enforcing them.
Then there is a vocal (on this site) minority of people, who justify "sticking it" to "the system" — the usual childish claptrap — who get more and more vocal with every rightful-but-clumsy step by the **AA. According to them, it is not quite stealing, and therefor is completely justified to produce unlimited copies of somebody else's intellectual property against the owner's will... Every once in a while, they will also claim, that it is the middlemen, who is deprived of revenue — as if that matters...
For every falsely accused granny there are hundreds of justly prosecuted copyright infringers, none of whom are reported on this example of objective journalism of a site.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
A tiny minority is actually concerned about who is paid. The rest want to have convenient (illegal or not) access to songs, and ripping your own CDs is not convenient enough to many people.
This is exactly what's at issue. Buying CDs and ripping them is more difficult than simply downloading them, or paying a site a few pennies to download them. AllofMP3 was so popular because for a couple cents getting music was even more convenient. You didn't even have to search through pirate sites to find them, they were all there in one place. They paid for the music because it was convenient, not because they wanted to make sure money went to the artists.
Looks like an ongoing game of Whack-a-Mole.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
>>> it has got to be at least a little worrisome that a group of American corporations can effectively control the legal system of another major nation
Nothing is free in Russia, 'group of American corporations' paid dearly to get it shut down, be it in political power or 'sponsorship' funds or likely both.
Having a used CD market brings up the value of CDs. If you can't resell an album after buying it, like with iTunes, then you may not pay as much for it. However, if you buy an album for $14, and you know you can sell it later for $6, then the album really only costs your $8. Same thing goes with video games. Most games aren't worth $60. But if you know you can sell it later for $20 once you've beaten it, then paying $60 doesn't seem so bad.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Yes, but the article's pointing out that alltunes wasn't shut down at the same time allofmp3 was and that allofmp3's credits weren't redacted.
"Most often, buying music CDs doesn't pay the band, it pays the labels (unless you bought the CD from a band who recorded and produced the music themselves, in which case it's probably a burned disc anyway). If the band has been backed by a label, they've already been paid by the label to license their music and sell it."
That's a bit backward from how most record contracts work. Contracts typically use a "the artist gets paid last" scenario, where royalty payments are held back and applied to the costs of production until they've been met.
If, at the time that you buy the CD, the CD has not yet reached the point of profitability, two things happen:
If the first point is confusing, consider the situation of making a donation to a local public TV or radio station. Say they need $100K to meet their budget and have collected $10K so far. An AllOfMP3 fan might state that donating $50 at this point would be useless, as the station will still not reach their goal, but the reality is that the $50 donation puts them $50 closer to reaching their goal.
The "pirate your music, but support the band by seeing the show" argument falls down when you do the math. If you pirate ten CDs a week, that's ten concerts you need to see a week -- that gets to be expensive, and a time sink. Then, of course, that there's the reality that not all the artists whose music you pirate are going to be able to play when and where you want them to. In most cases, when we pirate music, our actual contribution to the artists' livelihood is nil, despite our best intentions.
"Buying it used? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of trying to support the band? Say someone buys a CD for $14. They listen to it for a while, then it ends up at a used CD store once they're bored with it. I go in and buy the same CD for $6. The record label still only made that first $14. The only people that gain from used CD sales are used CD stores."
There are a couple of other benefits of buying a used CD vs. pirating it or downloading it from a Russian site. First, it's unquestionably legal, no matter how much the record companies would like to stop it. And, you support your local economy, vs. some Russian guy. I love having local record stores with ample selection of used CDs, but these establishments only stay in business with enough patronage.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Slashdot is not a journalism site, it is an aggregator. The important thing to note about
The outrage over AllofMp3 being shutdown and the actions of the RIAA is that many people
believe that the most valid form of protest against an industry and its actions is to commit
some kind of "theft" against the industry rather than engaging in a real boycott. To a great
part of the community seemingly represented on slashdot, a complete boycott of the major labels
supporting the RIAA is too inconvenient, so they redefine their illegal or quasi-legal actions
as a kind of protest.
I love that you hit the nail by noting that many belive that copyright infringement is not stealing,
even though the end effect is the same.
Thus, they argue that the "rights" of which you speak are fictitious and illegitimate (or at least overly broad). The "intellectual property" which you refer to is seen as an oxymoron and antithetical to progress and free culture. I won't go into the arguments any further--they have been described in eloquent detail many times on Slashdot.
The extent to which moral disagreement with copyright justifies civil disobedience is debatable. I'll give you that. However your characterization of the copyright reformist ideals as "childish claptrap" is quite unfair.
Besides, "effectively control the legal system" in the context of RUSSIA? That's a legal system in need of MAJOR work. Frankly, I'd rather the RIAA give a helping hand with getting it up to snuff than most of the local talent.
You're presuming that our legal system represents being "up to snuff" from the point of view of the citizens of Russia. Which calls into question the whole notion of national sovereignty.
While I agree with you that the legal system in Russia isn't one I'd like to live with - and, I suspect, isn't one the people of Russia like to live with - that doesn't mean that it's my right (or that of my country, much less that of some corporations with absolutely zero political accountability to anyone involved) to decide for them how it should be run.
That kind of interventionist thinking has gotten the US government in plenty of trouble. I can't imagine it's better when it's being executed by the RIAA.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
That's all very true, but you missing some of the point as well: not every downloaded song / movie is missed income to the artist (and label/studio behind them). In fact, I'd wager over 90% of the downloaded content wouldn't otherwise be converted into an actual sell.
As far as I see it, there are only 2 viable solutions:
1) Double the costs of bandwith costs and give halve to the entertainment industry (devided by downloads) and completely legalize it.
2) Give the public a real alternative, that's what AllOfMP3 did (many formats, low prices, drm-free) and why it was so popular even *after* everyone knew it wasn't legal. Give the public a legal version of AllOfMP3 and I'm sure the entertainment industry could be making more then before the time of P2P.
"This should be fun, and by fun, I mean a wholly depressing insight into the cognitive ability of some grown adults."
**AA are trying to make it less convenient to download, instead of making it more convenient to rip or otherwise buy legitimately. They are foolish, but they are within their rights -- however clumsy they are in enforcing them
Within their legal rights, yes; whether those legal rights are themselves right is the question at hand. Lobbying - successfully - for retroactive extensions to copyright protection, for criminalizing security research, for making the exercise of a protected right illegal (though not the right itself), all call into question how well the legal "right" matches up with the ethical "right."
Then there is a vocal (on this site) minority of people, who justify "sticking it" to "the system" -- the usual childish claptrap -- who get more and more vocal with every rightful-but-clumsy step by the **AA.
"Sticking it" to "the system" can be characterized as childish claptrap, or it can be characterized as civil disobedience. If a crime is so widespread that it is more common to commit it than to not, you can come to one of two conclusions: either the majority of your citizenry is made up of criminals, or it shouldn't be a crime. Clearly, music piracy isn't at that point, but it's approaching it. One consequence of a representative government is that if enough of the represented don't think something's a crime, it isn't one, regardless of who might want to make money off it being so.
According to them, it is not quite stealing, and therefor is completely justified to produce unlimited copies of somebody else's intellectual property against the owner's will...
That is a mischaracterization of the argument. Copyright infringement is not, in fact, stealing, insofar as those terms have specific meanings which do not match. Copyright infringement is also not high treason, murder, or barratry. This has no bearing on whether copyright infringement is illegal, unethical, or immoral. It has bearing on the framing of the debate - calling copyright infringement stealing is an appeal to emotion; an attempt to pre-emptively frame the debate about the ethics of the act by identifying it with an act that is universally agreed to be unethical. It's a classic straw man argument; claiming that the other side is trying to justify stealing, then aguing that stealing is unethical. If we want to have a debate about whether it's ethical to tear apart a Robo Sapien for fun, it's not a legitimate tactic to use the term "murder" to frame the debate.
In fact, the debate centers precisely around to what extent it is right for creators to control the dissemination of their creative efforts (whether the current system actually protects or aids the creators is a completely different debate, and irrelevant to this point; you're quite correct about that). On what grounds do I, as a photographer, derive the right to absolutely control who can see, copy, manipulate, or sell a photograph I have taken? What justification do I have for imposing an artificial scarcity on a naturally abundant good?
I do not intend these question to imply that no such right exists, simply to pose the questions that form the heart of the matter.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
Whether or not you believe what AllOfMp3.com was doing was illegal or unethical, it has got to be at least a little worrisome that a group of American corporations can effectively control the legal system of another major nation.
I don't think that is the right way to look at the situation. What is worrisome is that a group of American corporations convinced the US government that issues that are unique to the entertainment industry were such a big deal that the US government better care about them and in turn they became such a big deal that they were able to force Russia to care about them. I can assure you that Russia does not give in to bullying. They acted because they either got something under the table for doing so or the government concluded that there was some benefit that they would gain by shutting down one website that would outweigh the perception of giving in to US pressure. Russia does not do something for nothing so they are getting something out of the deal, but what they are getting I don't know.
Let's not delude ourselves. The main attraction of Allofmp3.com was the simple fact that $0.10 is a lot less than $0.99.
Then there is a vocal (on this site) minority of people, who justify "sticking it" to "the system"
Yes, there's lots of ways of justifying it. But you're missing the prime motivation. People want things for free, and will jump through however many hoops it takes to come up with any excuse that makes it appear reasonable to them. So we get;
- It's not theft, it's only copyright infringement. (So that makes it ok?)
- The artists don't get all the money anyway. (So giving them none is better?)
- The RIAA are evil and don't deserve my money. (So boycott their product.)
- All modern music is garbage, so they don't deserve to get paid for it. (So why are you listening to it?)
- They don't 'get it', they need a new business model. (Ok, since you obviously are MBA expert, suggest one.)
- I bought a CD once after listening to copies I took off a p2p network. (And the 50 others you didn't buy?)
- The quality of MP3s sold aren't good enough for my highly attuned ear. (And the pirated versions are better? If you're that fussy, buy the CD.)
- DRM restricts my freedom. (DRM is trivial to bypass if it bothers you.)
- The prices aren't reasonable. (That can only ever be a matter of opinion. Others clearly have no problem.)
- I am very concerned about official USA interference in legal Russian trade practices. (Yeah, right. Don't make me laugh.)
- I support the artist by going to their live gigs. (I'll keep that in mind next time that Japanese ambient reclusive artist is touring my town.)
The term comes from an essay by Henry David Thoreau. His crime was nothing larger than failure to pay a tax, one which he could well afford to pay. And in any case, putting a tactic up on a pedestal such that it can only be used for certain _Important_ issues pretty much guarantees that it won't be used.
allofmp3 claimed that they were paying the Russian equivalent of BMI, and the RIAA said otherwise. How is the average consumer supposed to tell the difference, especially given the histrionics the RIAA is known for?
It seems like if the labels weren't so greedy and paranoid, we could have an unambiguously legal, DRM-free, lossless download service in the states that charges a lot less than iTunes. Give the copyright holder 25% of the purchase price, let the provider keep the other 75% for operating costs and profit. Seems like a pretty good deal considering the rights holder risks nothing, pays nothing, and doesn't have to lift a finger besides cashing the checks. If they wanted to be really nice they could throw in a PDF of the album art.
how about I work towards a system where I CAN give them all the money by breaking the current one. Given that I would like to make a living as a musician at some point, I would REALLY like to see this happen.
um, does music downloading do this effectively? They don't get paid. Even better the boycotters don't have to deal with the annoying side effect of most boycots: the inability to use a product.
Slight mischaracterization here. MOST modern music is garbage. I DON'T listen to it. Most stuff I get is to replace cds that have gotten lost/stolen/etc over the years. And before I hear any bitching about it, I "got a license" so this should all be legal. Unless I bought a physical item, in which case putting it online should be my business and no one elses....
Not our job. In fact, if they just die, that would be great.
Those were crap. I don't remember if I erased them or not, but that might explain why my HD is getting full. At the same time, having already downloaded them maybe a friend would like them and HD space is cheap.
Actually, from Allofmp3.com, they were. They also came in the format of my choice. They were also 1/10th the price, and I was willing to sacrifice a bit of quality under those conditions (even though it turned out I didn't have to).
I am too busy bother with CDs, you want me to go fussing around with DRM when I can just ignore it from the getgo?
yes, in my opinion they are too high. As a result I don't pay it, because it is within my power not to.
I agree. most people don't give a damn about this. We ARE concerned about the effect that corporations have on our legal system, rights, and the rights of others. This issue is part of what happened here. Oh, wait, I take it back, I DO care about USA interference in Russian trade practices....
Please consider my lack of caring as a compassionate act to help this poor man get the hell out of his house. Life is too short to spend it inside a box, even one with windows. You're welcome.
Geez. You, too?
Are all of you folks completely unable to see that I mirrored, as closely as possible, all of the original poster's mistakes, bad habits, formatting, and punctuation? Same number of sentences. Same number of parenthetical remarks. I even used the same exact words, wherever I found it possible to do so.
proof reading there words: Misuse of "there" instead of "their," just like the original poster.
site Op's: I don't even know where to begin describing the wrongness of these letters being juxtaposed just like this, but it's simply copied verbatim (as legally protected parody) from the text provided by the original poster.
Punctuation and Letter's: I used a little liberty with these particular sins, but felt that was necessary to complete the body of work.
Maybe the next time you feel the urge to troll yourself, look a little a bit more closely at the context before hitting the "submit" button. Otherwise, you may just make yourself look like a foolish and careless slacker.
Kid-proof tablet..