The Pirate Bay Facing "Old Fashioned" Pressure

Jety writes "Ars Technica has an article reporting that The Pirate Bay is facing legal pressure from a new front. A wealthy musician with a track record for going head-to-head with record labels and little kids is now joining the queue to take a legal swing at TPB. What I find particularly interesting about this article is the description of the 'camera-toting investigators following [The Pirate Bay admins] around in cars marked with Danish plates.' One TPB admin asks, '"What do they think they can find out by following us around? Everything we do is digital.'"

Comments

All the "piracy" is digital, sure.

[loteck]

They obviously haven't been successful in prosecuting them for that, though.

If I were them, I'd be very careful about jaywalking, cramping my wheels to the curb, and making sure my mattress tags were intact. It's called a shitlist; an idea not entirely unfamiliar to TPB admins, I'm sure.

What's the Deal With Not Naming Names?

[GaryPatterson]

A "wealthy musician?" Seriously?

It's Prince. Or that symbol thingy. Or TAFKAP (I think I know what one of those "A"s stands for).

The summary seems unnecessarily coy about exactly who's behind this.

Re:Maybe...

[Zeinfeld]

Its pretty obvious why they would follow them round, find out what assets they have and whether they might be worth siezure.

Clearly not everything they do is digital. They have atoms as well: servers, laptops, flash drives. And clearly they are making a living somehow and someone is funding their activities somehow.

If I was investigating them I would have PIs on their tail. If nothing else it is certainly causing them enough concern to comment on it.

ha

[nomadic]

Peter Sunde, a Pirate bay admin, tells Ars that the Purple One's legal team has already started leaning on some advertisers to drop support for the site. "We're not even worried, since the Internet is too big for morally upset people to get it their way," Sunde said in an e-mail. "I'm just sad that Prince--whose music I really like--can't understand that he's the new Metallica versus Napster. And we all know who lost that..."

Uhhh...yeah, Napster did.

Could someone please tell me how TPB is somehow offering some new business model for the people who make the music?

The record labels are told people will still keep illegally distributing music because the labels aren't providing it online. The record labels finally give in and provide it online, and they're told that people will still keep illegally distributing music because they don't like DRM and 99 cents a song is somehow too high.

The only business model a lot of people here seemed to support was AllofMP3, but honestly 10 cent non-DRMed songs really isn't a viable business model, as much as everyone wants it to be.

Re:ha

[Joe Jay Bee]

There isn't a business model that could truly work, at least not a direct one. Commonly floated is the idea that if you release music for free, word of mouth and subsequent sales will make up for this. This, unfortunately, ignores the simple human traits that a) they will take anything not nailed down and b) perceived anonymity gives them an impetus to do things they wouldn't usually do (cf Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory...).

Radiohead made money with their recent dealie because they were established artists with a rabid fanbase, not a new band or a relatively unpopular one. For new artists, that isn't really a viable alternative either; not only because so few people would choose to pay for an unknown quantity, but also because cutting out the middleman (aka the record labels) cuts you off from the labels' traditional strong areas of promotion, distribution and general business nous, which, really, are the only reasons anyone signs with a label. What would be the point otherwise?

In all, my point (yes, I was getting to it in a roundabout way) is that business models based around free/absurdly cheap (read allofmp3) music are either unprofitable or wouldn't fly with shareholders of the major labels. It's a terrible business model unless your explicit aim is "get heard and damn the money". It is of no value except as a talking point for Slashdotters looking for the next justification-du-jour of why they will carry on being cheap rather than paying for what they consume. Like you said:

The record labels are told people will still keep illegally distributing music because the labels aren't providing it online. The record labels finally give in and provide it online, and they're told that people will still keep illegally distributing music because they don't like DRM and 99 cents a song is somehow too high.

They can't win; there's always a new reason. Either it's too expensive ($0.99 a song, $9.99 an album seems reasonable enough to me, where I live that's 2 quid cheaper than even an old mid-price album) or it has DRM (see the "take anything nailed down" thing... you want to try before you buy? Most good online music stores have previews you know...) or it's not good enough quality either technically (there's this lossless format you may have heard of, called the compact disc) or aesthetically.

(I like the last complaint, that people pirate because the music's not good enough; that's definitely why the last Britney album has over 1200 seeds on Mininova and the last Porcupine Tree album's had over 18k downloads... ;)

Re:ha

[Fred Ferrigno]

Could someone please tell me how TPB is somehow offering some new business model for the people who make the music? If they don't have a business model that works, it's up to them and them alone to find one. I don't work for them. I don't see any benefit if their business is or isn't successful. I have no interest in doing their job for them.

Technology routinely renders old business models obsolete and doesn't necessarily replace them. There may not be a viable business model for selling music anymore. Forcing the issue and banning technology to keep them in business amounts to a government subsidy.

Re:ha

[trawg]

I think you make some good points, but I'd just like to add to this:

There isn't a business model that could truly work, at least not a direct one. I'd qualify this further by saying "there isn't a business model that could truly work FOR THE RECORD LABELS". I think there's plenty of business models that'll work for bands themselves, it's just that all the big names that we're used to hearing are tied up in contracts that prevent them from doing what they want.

Radiohead is really the first band I know of that is trying something different in this space. Harvey Danger tried it before them, and I'm sure there's other big name artists out there that I just haven't heard of doing similar.

Re:ha

[Reikachu]

You're correct, they can't win. No amount of lawyers is going to make the technology go away. All this litigation is the outward manifestation of a death spiral.

And frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn. No matter what happens to the middlemen, music will continue to be made. Knowing this, and hating what commercialization and celebrity has done to the arts, what sane reason is there for me to continue to support their system? It will implode, and most of us will benefit. This is a simple consequence of sane consumer behaviour.

As for the artists: if the "traditional strong areas" of the middlemen are "promotion and distribution", then "get heard and damn the money" (from music sales) sounds like a pretty attractive alternative, don't you think?

Re:ha

[Solandri]

There isn't a business model that could truly work, at least not a direct one. Commonly floated is the idea that if you release music for free, word of mouth and subsequent sales will make up for this. This, unfortunately, ignores the simple human traits that a) they will take anything not nailed down and b) perceived anonymity gives them an impetus to do things they wouldn't usually do (cf Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory...).

There is indeed a business model which can work. But not in the way as the music industry currently exists.

About 10-15 years ago, wedding photographers charged for prints. They'd charge a nominal fee to shoot your wedding, but then make the bulk of their money selling you and your relatives the prints. All that changed when scanners and color photo printers became commonplace. Upon finding that a reprint would cost them $10-$30, people would just scan the original photo and print it for themselves. Sure there was some loss of quality since it was a copy, but the cost savings made it worthwhile. Faced with this threat, most photographers shifted their business model. Recognizing that it wasn't cost-effective nor good business to chase down every incident of copyright infringement, they now charge you a lot to shoot the wedding, while giving away the prints at-cost.

When you come down to it, there's really no difference from the music industry (other than an entrenched publication industry). Both musicians and photographers create a product which is essentially software. Back when software was difficult to duplicate, they both used to charge for the final product. Technology suddenly dropped the cost of duplication to near zero.

The key difference I see is that the music publication industry is vested in generating big name stars. The obvious reason is that it minimizes their cost - make a lot of money from a few big stars, rather than a little money from many small bands. Unfortunately for them, big stars are particularly susceptible to piracy - their market saturation approaches 100% so the only way they can make more money is by going after the copyright infringers. Small bands on the other hand could very well welcome piracy. If you only have 1% market saturation, if piracy increases your exposure to 10%, you're probably all for it. The additional business due to the widespread exposure (e.g. "I love your wedding photos! Who did you hire?") offsets the loss in revenue due to copyright infringement.

So very long-term, as the legal issues of copyright on the Internet are sorted out, that's the business model I see music shifting towards. Lots of small bands being paid to play live events (or being paid for the right to place recordings of their music at live events) and giving away copies of their music for free on the Internet as marketing. The era of the music superstar as we know it is coming to a close. Sure there might still be some stars whose music is so catchy it's known across the country (or even the world). But they'll make their money from the performance bookings they'll get from that widespread notoriety, not from selling CDs or MP3s. The vast majority of musicians will eek out a modest living plying their trade, just like most photographers do.

Re:FTA:

[king-manic]

Umm, I know he's trying to say that Metallica lost. However, Napster was closed down and turned into a less popular subscription service and file sharing was dealt a harsh blow that it took a while to recover from. They definitely lose that court case. Metallica won the smaller case and lost the larger war of digital piracy, at least so far. The difference here is that Prince actually has been embracing the internet and consumer rights in general. This situation isn't as clearly a case of "dinosaur fights the inevitable," and it certainly doesn't mean that TPB will be able to survive it. Metallica's career also declined. No way of knowing if it was the bad PR among their key demographics or if they were already growing unpopular beforehand. It's likely a little of both.

Re:FTA:

[ScrewMaster]

Nothing really changed in terms of music availability, other than that now we can now find more "illegal" tracks at higher bitrates, better quality, more quickly and conveniently than we could then. Amazing, isn't it? The Gnutella network alone is just bursting with music, and it's hardly the only one. The fact is, the RIAA's effort to shut down Napster was an absolutely classic Pyrrhic victory. Hell, a few more "successes" like that and they'll put the studios out of business entirely. Personally, I think the RIAA's poor decisionmaking in that situation would have justified the studios shutting them down instead. It really was a massive fuckup.

Put it this way: not only was that lawsuit a dismal failure in terms of discouraging copyright infringement, but also yet another clear example of the RIAA mindset simply not getting it. They failed to grasp either the technological potential of P2P (there's more than one way to skin a cat) or the human element (we've had a taste of this and we want more.) Had they asked, I would have told them that all they were doing was forcing a phase change on the technology. The appearance of Frankel's prototype Gnutella client so close on the heels of Napster's shutdown was no surprise to me. I grabbed a copy the night it was released, before AOL tried to shut it down (horse, barndoor, all that.) I could not believe how fast music began to appear on it. The thing had a serious memory leak, but I'll be damned if it didn't work! Anyway, if it hadn't been Justin Frankel, sooner or later somebody would have released the next generation of peer-to-peer, because Napster gave millions upon millions of people something they wanted. Here's the thing: some of those people were programmers.

That was something that even an RIAA lawyer should have been able to predict, and I think it should have been sufficient motivation to make them work with Napster so as to maintain a level of control over distribution. That would have required some vision, though, and a willingness to tell their bosses, "Hey, things are about to go from bad to worse and you had better do something NOW." Instead, they did the only thing they know how to do: throw lawyers at the problem. So they blew it.

So the GP can claim that the RIAA was successful in eliminating Napster as a source of illegal downloads ... and he would be right.

Not that it mattered.

Two faced

[gilesjuk]

Prince literally gives away his latest album with a newspaper in the UK, completely devaluing his music and brand, but when people copy his music he gets p*ssed off?

Maybe he's realised that if he doesn't have tons of money that he won't be able to attract sexy models anymore?

Old Fashioned Intimidation Tactics - MAFIAA Style

[CodeBuster]

What do they think they can find out by following us around? Everything we do is digital.

Perhaps they are trying to dig up dirt about the admins for a good old fashioned blackmail mud-slinging political match ala J. Edgar Hover and the old school politicos or maybe they are just trying to intimidate the admins (i.e. black suburbans, helicopters, and guys in SWAT vests with 'RIAA' velcroed to the back). The best thing that the admins could do in response would be to keep reporting what is going on in their blogs and other public places on the Internet. This will help discourage these pseudo agents from arranging an 'accident' or some other more overt form of persuasion because everyone will know who was responsible.

Re:Maybe...

[Mr_Freedownload]

They should release music for free and make money on live shows that to be honest can't be pirated cause you can't download the experience of a live show now can you?

logical conclusion

[enjahova]

There isn't a business model that could truly work

You just said it all, but you draw the opposite conclusion I do. We both agree that there is no feasible business model that aligns with the reality of modern technology.

Only you seem to be focusing on deriding the people who don't pay directly for their copies of music (according to our brief custom of the last 70 years).

Why is it so hard to see that its ok to let companies with no practical business model die off? I know it becomes a touchy subject when we bring art into the picture, but the spirit of copyright law is to promote the creation of art, not to give business models to musicians. It seems particularly hard for people of the last couple generations to fathom that music (or art in general) can be created without being paid for copies of their work. They can't see that the true value in art is the process by which it is created, that is what is rare. This value can still be monetized, and a business model can be developed around it (think service instead of product).

Even if you don't want to or can't believe this old school view of art, you will face the reality of digital technology. Copying is only going to get faster and more convenient. Distributed technology will only get more robust. Controlling the location of 1s and 0s will become increasingly futile. No laws will be able to reverse this, no amount of yelling thief at a generation of hungry minds will hold them back.

What do you think will happen when 1 million 3rd world kids get on the internet through OLPC? What happens when they reach 10 million in the next few years? Can you seriously expect them to even consider intellectual property with an open source key on their keyboard?

Right now there are more people with cell phone in China than there are people alive in the USA. What happens when there are more Chinese online than people in the US? What happens when the same goes for India? Do you think these huge amount of people wont be able to find a way to adapt open source software for their needs? When they are completely bypassing proprietary western solutions, what good will our DMCA do?

So I laugh at the moral indignation of the slighted intellectual property holders. Right now I am stealing. I'm robbing those who were lucky enough to get fat from an unworkable system. Luckily, the system is changing and I wont have to steal in the future. Still, every time they yell thief I feel more like Robin Hood, and I'm not the only one.

Re:logical conclusion

[digitrev]

The record labels HAVE a practical business model, which is funding and promoting artists and then collecting royalties on the records sold as payment. That lots of people selfishly choose to circumvent the payment bit of this model doesn't render it any less practical or feasible.

I hate to break it to you, but if you aren't providing the people with what they want, or even with that which they are willing to pay for, then your business model is no longer practical. The fact of the matter is, people are going to download, because it's cheap and convenient. Now, the record labels are forced into a shoddy situation. They have to 1) convince people that downloading is a bad thing, 2) make downloading either difficult or impossible, 3) lobby to make any method of obtaining music other than their proscribed methods illegal, and 4) prosecute those who break your laws.

Now, one is a hard thing to do, as people who download are people who aren't very likely to listen to The Man. Two is also a pain in the arse, as you encounter the hydra like nature of the Internet, as well as the Streisand effect. For every site you take offline, more will rise to take its place. Three, well they've accomplished it in the US. Now try getting every other country to pass similar laws. Oh, and when four comes along, I sincerely wish you the best of luck when it comes to prosecuting even enough people for breaking your paid and bought for laws.

If they cannot manage to get people to stop downloading, then their business model will go the way of the dodo, the dinosaur, and the PC Party of Canada.

Re:logical conclusion

[enjahova]

First off, I'd like to thank you for civil discussion. It's refreshing, I'll try do respond in kind.

The record labels HAVE a practical business model, which is funding and promoting artists and then collecting royalties on the records sold as payment.

I disagree, this is only true if you concede that records are practical to sell. My argument is that records are becoming increasingly irrelevant. This is based on the reality of technology, namely the increasing convenience and speed of digital communication, as well as the mathematical fact that DRM is impossible. The reality (not the legality) of the situation is that distribution will soon be completely decentralized. How soon isn't for certain, but from a /. reader's point of view it is not hard to see the exponential potential of OSS. For every DRM scheme it only takes one cracker, for every cracked piece of media it only takes one torrent tracker. As usability of these programs increases (and their evolution into libraries to be used by other programs) the struggle for control just gets more futile.

That is just the state of technology, we could also look at the sociological aspect of all of this. You mention the selfishness of the pirate hordes. I agree that there are large groups of people who will without qualms take whatever is put in front of them, especially when faced with very slim chances of retribution. I also believe that people want art to be made and enjoy supporting it. Many people argue (and you pointed out) that if prices are low enough and convenience is high enough, people will forgo pirating. I agree with this, but think that we haven't reached that point yet. In fact, I believe we will have to abandon the idea of paying for COPIES of a work, since copying will be (and is already) so trivial. My personal prediction is that new systems for directly supporting the artist will rise (we have seen the beginning of this with Radiohead and Saul Williams, or just the fact that paypal exists).

Finally, I do expect all the people involved will just lay down their arms and surrender, or they will be robbed blind. The end result will be the same, all existing media will be available to everyone. If its hard to believe look at http://youtube.com/universalmusicgroup, thedailyshow.com for some inklings of the future. Here is a giant carefully conceding, trying to stall the inevitable with as much control as possible. I don't think its all bad for them though, I believe they will be putting themselves in position to make money off the new system, slowly adapting to the change. If it doesn't happen too suddenly they may be successful. This is why I and others feel like Robin Hood, we are distributing the pork to the poor, we are seeding torrents,not just keeping it to ourselves.

All of this is still rather speculative of course. I would just like to point out something that should put us all a bit more at ease, and that is that humans love creating. We love creating art and music. The phrase "starving artist" is a cliche, common knowledge. No matter what happens, short of extinction, will stop humans from creating. I just like to think we will be creating more than ever.

Re:logical conclusion

[chebucto]

Keep in mind that copyright laws are an infringement on free speech; they only exist because, historically, the costs (in terms of lost freedom) were outweighed by the benefits (in terms of artistic production &tc).

Filesharing have increased the costs of copyright law: historically, copyright infringement could only be done in a factory setting by profit-seeking groups. Today, it is done by regular citizens. Where before copyright law effectively limited the freedoms of factory owners, today it limits the freedoms of everybody.

I've always felt that copyright law should be retained; however, it should only be applied against profitmaking infringement. That would restore individual freedoms while protecting artistic production:

When it comes to music, live performance means that musicians can still make money while being artistically productive. Movies will always have the theater: its ambiance is an attractor, and some movies simply work better on the big screen. Books have a physical form that remains far superior to digital reproduction.

Re:logical conclusion

[uglyduckling]

Back to today and reality. The reality of capitalism is what you said, which I quoted. If something has value, but is impossible to sell for profit, pretty soon no one will be able to sell it. I think eventually that means the death of music as we know it.

Think back about 90 years. Someone came up with the idea that sound could be transmitted and received wirelessly. Really useful for ships at sea, and letting Europe speak with America. This system could be used to transmit music from theatres and opera houses, but what would be the point - no-one would do that because they couldn't possibly make any money from it. Could they?

Every time there has been a revolutionary technology introduced the death of music has been predicted. Radio, television, open real tapes, cassette tapes. There was a lawsuit in the UK when Amstrad brought out a twin-deck cassette recorder with high-speed dubbing, because the record labels thought it's only possible use was piracy. CDs introduced a format that was more convenient than anything else in existance and not suitable for home recording, which the record companies loved. Then minidisc, CDRs came along and eventually MP3 players.

Television has made visual performance art available 24/7 practically for free, yet certainly in the UK theatres continue to exist and stage performers continue to make plenty of money.

In the UK there was no independent commercial radio when my Dad was a boy, it was all state controlled. Illegal and semi-legal pirate (ship) radio was what teenagers listened to in the 60s, and the government here made huge efforts to stamp it out. Eventually commercial licenses were granted and 'pirate' radio became mainstream, with BBC Radio 1 eventually adopting the same programming style.

Music will survive - in fact thrive - without the big record labels.

Re:Maybe...

[bladesjester]

Live shows and the merchandise sold at them *are* how most bands actually make money. The truth is that not many bands make much of anything from album sales due to shady practices by the record companies. Generally the bands only break even on album sales and that's if they're lucky.

Re:Maybe...

[Sabalon]

And they're shooting themselves in the head over that as well. Shows are starting to get too costly to bother, and the merchandise sold is already outrageous. $35 for a t-shirt? After paying $90 to get in (Rush) - I think not.

On the other hand, I've been to smaller shows where it was about $12 to get in, and have bought the CD's because the artist was good and the CD's weren't a ripoff. If they had other merchandise I may have even bought that, assuming the price was just a little profit for them, and not a down payment!

Re:Maybe... Illegal where?

[penix1]

If musicians can't make money, they won't record.

This is a crock. Many, if not most of the bands out there are not making any profits off the labels so nothing will change on that front. Also, not every band out there does it for the money. Many do it for *GASP* the music or *GASP* the recognition for the real money maker, concerts. In the days before big mega media corps, many bands released their music to their local radio stations for this recognition. When was the last time you heard one on your local radio? Maybe it's time to break up the stranglehold the labels have on the media market. Maybe it is time the labels cartel was broken up starting with the RIAA itself.

I don't think "pressure" is the word ...

[ScrewMaster]

The Pirate Bay Facing "Old Fashioned" Pressure

Sounds more like good old-fashioned harrassment to me.

Re:Maybe...

[TheLink]

Doesn't make sense?
Take off those rose-tinted glasses and read this.

http://www.negativland.com/albini.html

Written by Steve Albini.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Albini

There are articles by others on how it works which are similar.

Basically the band gets an "advance" on future earnings, and almost everything is paid for off that advance (recording studio, recording + mastering fees, you name it...), so often the band ends up _owing_ the record company money :).

Quote: "The band is now 1/4 of the way through its contract, has made the music industry more than 3 million dollars richer, but is in the hole $14,000 on royalties. The band members have each earned about 1/3 as much as they would working at a 7-11, but they got to ride in a tour bus for a month. The next album will be about the same, except that the record company will insist they spend more time and money on it. Since the previous one never "recouped," the band will have no leverage, and will oblige. The next tour will be about the same, except the merchandising advance will have already been paid, and the band, strangely enough, won't have earned any royalties from their T-shirts yet. Maybe the T-shirt guys have figured out how to count money like record company guys. Some of your friends are probably already this fucked."

Why do you think some bands don't care if their stuff gets copied, they've figured that the people doing the most hurt to them aren't the "evil downloaders".

Even you are wrong

[SmallFurryCreature]

If musicians can't make money, they won't record.

Dire straits, Sultans of swing.

Listen to the song and hear what it is about.

There are countless musicians who got a day time job to support their hobby, at best they recoup a bit of their costs at times but mainly it is a hobby AKA a moneysink.

When I was young a neighbour of mine operated a pirate radio station. He bought all the gear, bought records, payed for the power and for what? A few small ads? Did he become rich of it or even break even? Hell no, but it was his dream, his hobby.

If all musicians are out of a job tomorrow, the music will go on. And personally, I think the music will be a lot better or at least more varied, because people will play what they want to play, not what sells best.

Re:Even you are wrong

[witekr]

It seems like the majority of people here want to completely obliterate the business of recorded+sold music. I agree that the current major record labels are absurd and out of control, but I also don't think that completely removing all chances of a musician making an income through records is a good idea either... but that is what i see being implied here often on Slashdot.

Sure, most musicians worth any mention DO create music for the love of making music. That's obvious, but I think money and fame is still a large point of motivation for many musicians. I'm a musician myself, and release tracks as free downloads on my website. I definately DO aspire for a chance to make some money creating music, though - and don't tell me that's wrong or that I'm following a "dinosaur model". It's a highly motivating factor for me.

Spending months of free time working on hundreds of song ideas and picking the best I can come up with, in hopes of making a perfect album is a lot of work! A big part of the drive to perfect it is that I might be able to make a few bucks selling such an album, either by distributing music myself over the net, or signing with a small record label. If copyright law was completely changed to fit the views of some people here, then selling music on my website or signing with a small label would be futile, perhaps only resulting in a few 'good samaritan' donations. In that situation, I might as well just keep releasing anything I do for free on my site with no hope of monetary compensation.

But then I might not work so hard on perfecting and polishing an album. I wouldn't send my album to a professional mastering engineer (or spend countless hours mastering the album myself) because I wouldn't feel like I owe anyone the benefit of that extra layer of polish. I might not spend months or years working on songs and remaking them until they fit what I consider a high standard.

If all musicians are to lose their chances of making money via records because John Doe doesn't feel like spending any money on music (yet wants to listen to it all anyway..) that is a sad, selfish tradeoff, in my opinion.

Re:Even you are wrong

[pyr3]

I think that the best way to put it is something that I see reiterated a lot.

In the 'new business model,' it becomes easy for a lot of artists to make a little, but hard to a few artists to make a lot.

It just means the death of the "mega-lithic" rock star that 'hits it big' and owns 10 yachts and 3 multi-million dollar homes. On the flipside, it means that lots of smaller artists will be able to make more money selling their music through their own sites, or independent online retail outlets (something similar to iTunes Music Store where individual artists can register to sell their music).

Re:Even you are wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

indeed, the best movies are always made by amateurs so why should music be any different, compare The lord of the Rings trilogy with the top 3 amusing cat videos on youtube. you can see that letting money get in the way of art only leads to inferior products.

THAT WAS SARCASM.

Re:Even you are wrong

[AdamHaun]

Congratulations, you've seen through the illusion and discovered that Slashdot's anti-RIAA campaign is really about getting free stuff after all. Note that The Pirate Bay is both:

A) Declining to pay artists for the use of their copyrighted material, and
B) Making money off of it by hosting ad banners.

Complete hypocrisy, but of course nobody here seems to care. And you know that if a web site were doing something similar in another medium (say, video game FAQs or Slashdot posts) without permission there would be a huge outcry. Didn't Jon Katz's "Voices from the Hellmouth" book spark just such a controvery? The guiding principle here seems to be "It's okay to use people's stuff for free unless it's my stuff."

Navigate away, there's no point in continuing.

[Anonymous Coward]

The first HUNDRED FUCKING COMMENTS are of the nauseating amateur-comedy-hour variety that get modded up rather than sent to oblivion where they belong.

Even the summary is shitty. Way to ironically make a feeble gesture against Prince by not mentioning him by name.

Actually... in a rational world, actions like this would be lauded rather than mindlessly criticized. Unfortunately the dominant meme here is that information should be forced to be free and anyone opposing that philosophy using any means should be demonized.

Right on, Prince. You've made some of the best music, you're an intellectual maverick, and you aren't part of the problem regardless of how many insipid comments get positive moderation on a communist geek site.

Re:Maybe...

[packeteer]

Wrong. Should the current TPB admins be prosecuted, dispossessed of their goods and incarcerated, it would scare into submission anyone who would think of following in their footsteps.

It will scare most people, some people will still go for it. Also it will probably only scare people in the same country. Someone under a different legal system is probably going to still feel fairly safe.

Re:Maybe... Illegal where?

[Anonymous Coward]

If musicians can't make money, they won't record.

I'd rephrase it as If bad musicians can't make money, they won't record>/i>
If money was the only reason to make music you wouldn't see a single jazz musician around, regardless of piracy they sell close to nothing compared to chart stars, but they're still around. Piracy will hopefully help us to get rid of bad musicians, wannabe artists and millionaires who have no clue about art. Do not expect the good ones to go away though.

I am not saying you are wrong

[SmallFurryCreature]

I am saying, don't expect me to give a damn. I am a baker by training. A good one, but YOU buying YOUR bread in the supermarket and insisting on zoning laws that don't allow me to have the bakery attached to the shop have put me out of business.

Times change, I had to give up my dream, why should you be any different?

Society does NOT own you the right to make a living in your chosen career. Only a lucky few manage that.

Unless you support goverment action to protect all kinds of other jobs that are dying out, I don't see my musicians should be given any more special threatment then they already get. Check how much money already goes to the arts. You need my taxes AND my spending money? Greedy much?

I wish you luck, if you make it, congrats. BUT do NOT expect me to subsidize a dying industry unless you are willing to do the same for mine. Show me the receipts from your local butcher, baker and grocer for the last decade and I will buy your album, but if you shopped at a supermarket just once, the deal is off. You don't care about my career, I don't care about yours.

Re:Maybe... Illegal where?

[kz45]

"This is a crock. Many, if not most of the bands out there are not making any profits off the labels so nothing will change on that front. Also, not every band out there does it for the money. Many do it for *GASP* the music or *GASP* the recognition for the real money maker, concerts. In the days before big mega media corps, many bands released their music to their local radio stations for this recognition. When was the last time you heard one on your local radio? Maybe it's time to break up the stranglehold the labels have on the media market. Maybe it is time the labels cartel was broken up starting with the RIAA itself."

don't you think we should *GASP* give the musicians a choice? Also, when you don't make shit from concerts unless you are signed with a label.