Don't Stop File-Sharing, Says Former Pink Floyd Manager

Barence writes "The former manager of Pink Floyd has labelled attempts to clamp down on music file-sharing as a 'waste of time.' 'Not only are they a waste of time, they make the law offensive. They are comparable to prohibition in the US in the 1920s,' said Peter Jenner, who's now the emeritus president of the International Music Managers' Forum. 'It's absurd to expect ordinary members of the public to think about what they're allowed to do [with CDs, digital downloads, etc]... and then ask themselves whether it's legal or not.' The comments come as Britain's biggest ISP, BT, said it was confident that Britain's Digital Economy Act — which could result in file-sharers losing their internet connection — would be overturned in the courts, because it doesn't comply with European laws on privacy."

Comments

Prohibition?

[KarrdeSW]

They are comparable to prohibition in the US in the 1920s

I wish a bittorrent network was anything like a speakeasy.

Filesharing may be free as in beer, but it does not deliver you free beer.

Re:Prohibition?

[mcgrew]

Filesharing may be free as in beer, but it does not deliver you free beer.

Neither did speakeasies; you had to pay for the beer, and Al Capone and his ilk got the money for your beer. And comparing file sharing to alcohol prohibition is a dubious analogy at best (is slashdot's "badanalogyguy" really Peter Jenner?). It only holds in that both were laws that the public vehemently disagreed with and disregarded. Alcohol prohibition is more like drug prohibition -- it spawned violent gangs that were funded by the illicit substances, and the laws themselves caused more problems than they could possibly have solved, and many of the problems attributed to alcohol then and illegal drugs now are caused by the laws themselves, rather than the substances.

But I have to agree with Jenner, and add that piracy and the phantom "lost sales" aren't the real reason the RIAA is against file sharing. It's because the RIAA labels have radio, and the indies have P2P. P2P does in fact cost the RIAA labels sales; when you hear an indie song you like and buy the CD, that's money you don't have to buy RIAA music. The RIAA's war against "piracy" is a war against their competetion.

If there was no such thing as radio, the RIAA would certainly welcome P2P and "pirates".

Re:Prohibition?

[Hatta]

Filesharing today is a lot like Prohibition during the 1920s. I'm worried however that it will end up more like Prohibition of the 1990s-200s. That is, an endless war for which countless civil liberties are sacrificed.

Re:Prohibition?

[Shakrai]

It only holds in that both were laws that the public vehemently disagreed with and disregarded.

Does John Q. Public really care all that much about file sharing? It doesn't seem to hold much sway (in either direction) outside of the geek/teenager/record-label-executive world.

Re:Prohibition?

[Hatta]

it spawned violent gangs that were funded by the illicit substances

Remember allofmp3? Weren't they run by the Russian mob?

the laws themselves caused more problems than they could possibly have solved

Chilling effects from restrictive laws on copying cause more creative work to go unpublished than free copying would.

many of the problems attributed to alcohol then and illegal drugs now are caused by the laws themselves

Many of the problems attributed to piracy (artists getting screwed over) are caused by the organizations who actually hold the copyrights (see the RIAA accounting article we had a few days ago.)

It is very much like both alcohol and drug prohibition. It took just over 10 years to get the first repealed. It's been 60 years of the second, and only the first cracks are beginning to show. I hate to think what the next few decades of the War on Piracy will bring.

Re:Prohibition?

[BitZtream]

Contrary to what you might believe, speakeasies didn't provide free beer either.

Re:Prohibition?

[KarrdeSW]

Neither did speakeasies [virginia.edu]; you had to pay for the beer...

Correct. I wasn't actually under the impression that speakeasies offered free booze. I was just bored and made a failed attempt at punning :P

Interesting point on radio, though.

Re:Prohibition?

[nine-times]

...the phantom "lost sales" aren't the real reason the RIAA is against file sharing. It's because the RIAA labels have radio, and the indies have P2P.

I think it's important to understand that the whole thing is largely about controlling distribution channels. Once upon a time, record companies made money by manufacturing and selling actual records. The big companies secured their business by controlling the distribution channels for music. They made deals with record stores about which albums would be shelved and which albums would be prominently featured in their stores. They made deals with radio stations about which songs would be played. That's how they made their money, and that's how they kept competition at bay.

Now, they aren't in the business of manufacturing records anymore. CDs are pretty much done. All they have left is the distribution. If they had been smart and technologically savvy, they would have taken control of online distribution quickly and maintained control of the distribution channels. But they weren't smart and technologically savvy. They still aren't.

The people working for these companies flatter themselves that their business is about being cool and making music. The reality is that they've been soulless marketing companies for years, and now they're turning into providers of technical services. Large portions of these companies should be run by IT people, and they should be providing high-quality Internet distribution services.

Re:Prohibition?

[angus77]

I wish a bittorrent network was anything like a speakeasy.

Filesharing may be free as in beer, but it does not deliver you free beer.

I've never been to one, but didn't you have to pay for the beer in a speakeasy?

Re:Prohibition?

[B1oodAnge1]

It's very simple.

Someone who has $30 to spend on music will spend $30 on music no matter how many albums they do or don't download, those downloads do not represent lost sales.

On the other hand, if our hypothetical person decides to support an indy band (that they found through file-sharing), then that $15 that is spent on a non RIAA artist represents a definite lost sale.

Re:Prohibition?

[Andorin]

I would have to disagree here, the lost sales don't come from Indie music, it comes from when you hear a song and instead of buying the CD, you go and torrent it.

If I choose to buy independent music over music published by an RIAA label, then the RIAA just lost a sale.

This isn't a RIAA vs. Indie argument, as an Indie musician only gave away their music they'd make less money than if people bought their music.

You mistakenly assume that the indie musicians who gives out their music for free won't see any revenue from their fans.

Re:Prohibition?

[NotBornYesterday]

the lost sales don't come from Indie music, it comes from when you hear a song and instead of buying the CD, you go and torrent it.

I don't buy that. It's a lost sale only if the sharing of the song prevents a sale - and that could be argued both ways. A lot of so-called "lost sales" are people who wouldn't have bought it anyway, ergo, no sale was really lost, regardless of the right or wrong of downloading. Indie bands cost the major labels money by competing for consumer's ears as much as their wallets.

The way I've seen things, downloading music to try it for free is like hearing music on the radio to try it for free. It creates exposure for the artist, and generates interest (hopefully) in the music, which then drives sales for albums and concert tickets. That's why record companies focused so much time and energy (oh, and *cough* MONEY *cough*) on getting as much radio play for their artists as possible.

Re:Prohibition?

[interval1066]

"Does John Q. Public really care all that much about file sharing?"

They don't, which makes the label's attempts to equate file sharing with more egregious crimes all that more laughable. This three strikes nonsense they're trying to pass in France is one example; French law makers passed it with flying colors last year because label lobbyists showering them with contributions and everything was great. Then a little earlier this year those same politicians realized they had to get re-elected; now they're balking, and some are even backing out of the pockets of those label lobbyists. http://www.zeropaid.com/news/89860/french-ump-members-having-second-thoughts-on-three-strikes/ Bend with the breeze indeed. I'm sorry, but file sharing is not as criminally dangerous as murder. Not even a little.

Re:Prohibition?

[Bert64]

You still lose fidelity unless you download flac files, mp3 and similar lossy compression formats do reduce the quality, wether or not you can tell the difference is down to how good and well trained your ears are, how good your speakers are etc. Many people couldn't tell the difference between an original and a poor copy on audio cassette complete with loud background hissing.

Re:Prohibition?

[zmollusc]

Of course file sharing is as criminally dangerous as murder. Share files and the terrorists win! Haven't you been paying the slightest attention?

Re:Prohibition?

[jedidiah]

I don't buy that. It's a lost sale only if the sharing of the song prevents a sale - and that could be argued both ways.

> It used to more or less mean that. It used to be when you made a copy you lost
> fidelity. As such, even when you shared, chances are if you listened to the song,
> you still went and bought it. This was especially true for radio vs CD. Now, people
> just steal and don't give it a second thought.

Back in the day, they would broadcast entire albums uncut in their entirety on the radio. You could record all of the good hits off the radio too. So if you didn't want to pay for your music, you never had too. You might want to buy singles but you never really had to. You might want to buy an album but never really had to either.

Nothing has changed.

Things are just a little more transparent now.

It's just more obvious that people can copy stuff. It's not even obvious that more people actually are.

If you are willing to compromise on quality, nothing here has changed in the last 30 years.

Re:Prohibition?

[mangu]

speakeasies didn't provide free beer

I don't think they provided beer at all, free or not. AFAIK, what speakeasies sold was moonshine. Beer has too little alcohol per volume, why would you go to the trouble of carrying that much water around when the cops were after you?

Re:Prohibition?

[PCM2]

Does John Q. Public really care all that much about file sharing? It doesn't seem to hold much sway (in either direction) outside of the geek/teenager/record-label-executive world.

I don't know what kind of people you hang around with, but I don't know anyone under the age of 35 who doesn't know about BitTorrent, or at the very least some other means of downloading non-free music for free. Years ago I had a 35-year-old single mom from Detroit tell me she hasn't bought any music in a long time, because she just downloads it. My musician friends are some of the most avid consumers of music I've ever met, and since they can't afford to buy every CD they want to hear, they generally get everything they want to hear from torrents before buying some of it. (And yes, they would also like people to buy their own CDs, but they all accept the way the modern music world is.) Other friends spend whole weekends at home watching entire seasons of HBO TV shows, because they download them one torrent at a time. If you don't hear much about the "file sharing controversy," I'd say it's because that ship has long since sailed.

Re:Prohibition?

[flyneye]

Ahhh the days of Audiognome consolodating so many networks and chats. Finding even the obscure in seconds and hangin out chattin with your buds .(about buds) Yeah bitorrent just kinda sucks the fun out of it, doesn't it?

Re:Prohibition?

[FiloEleven]

Chilling effects from restrictive laws on copying cause more creative work to go unpublished than free copying would.

Can you elaborate on this? The only "creative work" that I can see being unpublished due to copyright laws is work based on samples. While some sample use is indeed quite creative (Radiohead's Idioteque comes to mind), the vast majority just capitalizes on people's familiarity with the original work, and it seems to me that the creator of the original work should be compensated for its use.

Re:Prohibition?

[Draek]

Yes, they do. YMMV and all that but even my grandma uses Ares from time to time.

In fact, I'd say the geek and the yuppie crowd are the only ones that care about *paying* for your music online, or if not pay per se at least download it legitimately through sites such as Jamendo. Myself included, before all the idiot "stfu u pirate n stop pirateing" trolls.

Re:Prohibition?

[bruce_the_loon]

Consider ASCAP's recent attack on the EFF and Creative Commons. If they get some heavily restrictive law passed, you'll find people who wanted to publish using CC not bothering because CC is illegal and they don't want the protected shite that ASCAP pushes.

Re:Prohibition?

[jd]

Please bear in mind that the 1920s involved machine guns, really bad nicknames, dreadful musicals and even worse Hollywood blockbusters.

Re:Prohibition?

[mstahl]

I think that's exactly the point he was trying to make when he said "It's absurd to expect ordinary members of the public to think about what they're allowed to do [with CDs, digital downloads, etc]... and then ask themselves whether it's legal or not.". Because downloading music became so easy and so anonymous so quickly, it entered into the ordinary workflow of people's lives and users that download are so numerous that the chances of any one of them getting caught are infinitesimal at best. Geeks get really up in arms about it and so does the recording industry, but in between are hundreds of millions if not billions of people who genuinely don't care about the politics of it beyond "Is what I'm doing illegal and can I get caught easily?". I hate to break it to the recording industry, but the number of people who are acclimated to downloading music—legally or otherwise—is increasing rapidly, and the number of people who prefer to physically walk into a music store or best buy/walmart/whatever to buy a CD is dwindling fast.

Re:Prohibition?

[selven]

There are about 30 million teenagers (using the strict definition of 13-19 here) in the US. They also have a disproportionately loud voice because they're more likely to have internet access and lots of spare time. Teenagers are a very powerful social force indeed, and they should not be underestimated.

Re:Prohibition?

[bzipitidoo]

What incentive? You are right in that for music, only incentives can get people to pay in some fashion. Force doesn't work any more.

Distribution by Internet is incredibly more efficient than distribution by CD. People are not going to pay for all that overhead. We actually will pay for music. What we won't pay for are fat pay packages for useless record company executives who are trying to screw both us and our favorite artists, and the immense costs of pressing CDs, shipping them all over the world, reserving shelf space for them, and handling them with highly expensive manual labor. When I pay for music, I want most of my money to go to the musicians, not to a bunch of middlemen.

Miss the point? On the contrary! Seems you are implying that it isn't possible for musicians to make a living if everyone pirates. You could not be more wrong.

Re:Prohibition?

[Runaway1956]

I don't know if the geek will inherit the earth - but the teenagers certainly will. Today's teens are tomorrow's voters. Piss 'em off now with irrational laws, and they will remember. I wish that RIAA would piss off a whole LOT of teens. Not to mention their parents, who happen to be eligibile to vote today, AND tomorrow.

Re:Prohibition?

[iamnobody2]

Actually, I think a good many speakeasies, especially up north, sold Canadian Liquor of varying qualities. Also, from what I've read of Mencken, he was able to also get beer at some speakeasies.

Re:Prohibition?

[Pyrus.mg]

Prohibition of the 1990s-200s.

OK, so you think time flows that way, do you? Interesting.

Re:Prohibition?

[sixsixtysix]

it depends. if it was broadcast freely over the air (or obtained via subscription), i can record it. you can record it, too. hell, if you have a better recording device, i should be able to have you record it for me. new revenue streams or the quality of recording devices should never get in the way of things that were perfectly acceptable in the past. if i hear a song on the radio or see a television episode that falls under my cable subscription, i can and will record it. if companies would stop crippling the way i can get it into my preferred format in the quality that it was aired, i'd stop downloading these goods elsewhere. but nooo. most dvrs/cable/sat boxes have their firewire crippled, so when i could be dumping hd goodness to my pc and converting for any number of devices, i end up having to download the shows and archiving them that way. sure, i could just delete dvr recordings and be done with it, but since precedent was set in the past, here we are. in the future, when all media is pay for every viewing/listening/etc, we'll look back at this and cry.

Re:Prohibition?

[elvesrus]

this is different how? your points in order

machine guns - we have uzis instead of tommy guns
really bad nicknames - have you seen some of the nicknames used on the internet?
dreadful musicals - high school musical, hamlet 2, etc.
even worse Hollywood blockbusters - do i need to say more than twilight?

Re:Prohibition?

[Thing 1]

I don't think they provided beer at all, free or not. AFAIK, what speakeasies sold was moonshine. Beer has too little alcohol per volume, why would you go to the trouble of carrying that much water around when the cops were after you?

Exactly. Same reason we now have crack; it's more concentrated than cocaine, so one can carry higher dollar value for the same risk (or same dollar value, for lower risk). I fucking hate the war on some drugs. Go watch "Union", Canada rocks (BC bud!).

Re:Prohibition?

[sjames]

John Q. Public probably doesn't want to get sued into oblivion if/when his child downloads a song. He doesn't want to get sued when he puts up the youtube of his child dancing to the radio.

The only reason John Q. Public doesn't get more vocal is because he just assumes a download or two harm nobody and that nobody would be so petty as to sue over it. If he knew what was actually going on, he'd probably speak up. If he knew his new plasma cost a bit more than it should because of anti-piracy crap, he'd probably care.

Re:Prohibition?

[KlomDark]

OK, buddy, prove that it don't... ;)

Re:Prohibition?

[jd]

Hmmm. Ok, I would have to agree on your points there.

Re:Prohibition?

[servies]

That's not the main cause. In the early days, whey you heard a song you liked, you had to buy the album (if it wasn't released as a single). Now, if you hear a song you like, you buy that track on iTunes and ignore the rest of the album...
I guess you all can do the accounting yourselves...

Re:Prohibition?

[silentcoder]

>the problem with "downloading music for free" is that its NOT like hearing it on the radio to try for free,
True, when you download it you can listen to it when you're in the mood for it - not 5000 times a day until you're so utterly sick of it that he last thing you ever want to do in your whole life is hear it again. I wonder how many sales are lost by overplaying on the radio ?

>and this is a disingenuous analogy at best. If you can download and own it for free, what incentive would you have to pay for it?
If you can turn on the radio and hear the latest single by $FLAVOR_OF_THE_MONTH at least once an hour for the whole day... what incentive do you have to pay for it then ?
But you can't download a concert experience. The downloads/radio songs you do could be decisive in WHICH concert tickets you spend your money on though.

>This isn't about "exposure" or promotion - its simply about getting consumers to actually pay for the music they download and keep from artists
Oh so it can't be about both then ? What is it with some people and their inability to imagine any issue having more than one side or possibly all sides being valid PARTS of a whole ? The reality is that downloads have significantly more appeal than album purchases - for most people. You get hte songs you want, when you want them. You never have to hunt for an album that is not being pushed anymore. You don't ever have to actually listen to the 5 filler tracks on it and you can mix and match the order of songs in your playlist to suit your mood instead of the order the producer thought you had to hear them in.
The record companies didn't move into the online space in time - from the start they fought digital music as hard as possible. Remember when the RIO created the first real mp3 player ? That was BEFORE the napster thing and downloads - they sued them and tried to get the device banned - even though presumably the major use would be for people to put their ripped CD's on. They could see their distribution model about to fail - and refused to adapt.
The problem with itunes and all the other legal methods are they arrived too late and even now are too limited in power. There's still no good way to do itunes purchases on Linux- and they are still utterly overpriced.
RMS suggested that an ideal way would be to be able to embed in the songfile itself a simple one-button process to "Send the artist one dollar". One button- not a bunch of legal forms, and it pops up as you play, for each song, if you click it, one dollar to the artist. That removes any need for record companies at all -and the money actually GOES to the artists - it makes ALL artists indy and creates a perfectly level playing field.
That would actually mean we get BETTER music produced.

>but you keep ignoring that maybe some artists dont want to give away their music for free. what then?
Who the fuck cares what they want ? Copyright wasn't created to serve artists but to serve the PUBLIC. Specifically to increase the public domain by offering ARTISTS an incentive. It's not ABOUT what they want. The public's demands are what matters. It's a good IDEA to remunerate artists. Buying music on an artificial monopoly is not the only way to remunerate artists - it's probably not even the best way anymore. The one thing that has NO place in this debate whatsoever is what "artists WANT us to be able to do". Being able to write a song does NOT give you the right to dominate the decisions of everybody who ever wants to hear it. Not even ONE of those decisions.

Re:Prohibition?

[NotBornYesterday]

That assumes people will do without - which they absolutely don't

Really? I do all the time. I haven't purchased a CD for my own use in years, (gifts for the kids every now and then maybe, but these days they prefer iTunes gift cards), and I don't download either. I'd rather listen to the radio, whether via internet radio or over the air. Am I somehow depriving the artist of a paycheck?

And frankly, I'm sick of the whining about lost sales. The labels themselves are thieves. The old saying goes that a man might rob a train with a gun, but an educated man might steal the whole railroad with a fountain pen. Same goes for the labels and their exploitative contracts. They plead for us to think of the poor starving artists, but to they?

Re:Prohibition?

[NotBornYesterday]

The cool thing is, I still own half a dozen tape cassettes that I made when I was a kid and do you know what? When I was older, I *bought* Dr. Demento CD's and several CD's of Tom Lehrer's music even though I could have easily torrented them.

Ask this guy.

Re:Prohibition?

[tehcyder]

Someone who has $30 to spend on music will spend $30 on music no matter how many albums they do or don't download

Er, no. If they can get the music for $0 they'll spend $0 on music and the $30 on drugs or bombs or something.

Re:Prohibition?

[silentcoder]

>> Being able to write a song does NOT give you the right to dominate the decisions of everybody who ever wants to hear it. Not even ONE of those decisions.

>Wrong.

>Copyright serves the public interest by providing for a financial incentive to create artistic works. It does not mean that its purpose has not been served just because you don't like its restrictions.

Your argument has nothing to do with what I said. Artists do NOT have a NATURAL right to control anything at all. We give them an artificial one by RESTRICTING our own rights to do whatever we want. As long as copyright serves its purpose - to expand the public domain - this is a trade-off we are prepared to make. We're willing to give up those freedoms for a period of time because we can buy something worthwhile with it.
The moment copyright stopped serving that purpose - the trade-off became an unjustifiable restriction on OUR natural right to copy. The justification you cite isn't TRUE anymore. And no the justification is NOT to give an incentive for creation. The justification is teh EXPANSION OF THE PUBLIC DOMAIN. We incentivise creation as a means to an end, to grow the public domain. In this age of retroactive extensions of already ludicrous copyrigth terms -that goal is no longer being met. Since the distributors get the money and not the artists - and actively REMOVE from availability some works - it fails even more as it doesn't even meet the intermediary step toward the goal anymore.

>> What is it with some people and their inability to imagine any issue having more than one side or possibly all sides being valid PARTS of a whole ?

>The problem is that you keep thinking your "side" invalidates the legal right for an artist to control the distribution of his work. Itunes and amazon let you buy your songs online.

That legal right is an artificial restriction made for a certain goal - since that goal is no longer being met by (I would personally say meetable by) copyright - copyright is no longer sensible. The natural right here is our right to copy. We allow it to be sacrificed TEMPORARILY in order ot have MORE things to copy. The moment we stopped GETTING more things to copy, we lost all incentive to make that sacrifice.

>> The reality is that downloads have significantly more appeal

>I never said anything about downloads being bad. You should just have to pay for them. But your straw man argument works great when you can't find any other rebuttal.

I wasn't saying you did.

> The record companies didn't move into the online space in time
>Amazon is drm free. Are you sure you aren't using an outdated argument to justify piracy?

It was too late. That was my point. The second part of my post was a historical perspective on how we came to BE in this position. I'm well aware of what has changed since then but that's not relevant. I justify downloading and sharing based on the faillure of copyright to deliver it's promise to us as citizens. Thus removing the justification for restricting our rights in the first place. I still think incentivising artists is a good thing- but only as long as the benefit is to the public domain. Copyright doesn't do that - it may have done so once, but it doesn't now. Therefore it has to go. We can argue about other ways to pay artists but copyright is now an unjustifiable intrusion into the civil liberties of all citizens that has no reward for them.
What the historical perspective indicates is why and how the citizens came to discover a real USE for copying, which didn't exist before. We didn't much care about sacrificing hte right to copy in the past since we couldn't usefully excercise it anyway. Now we can, so unless copyright is giving us MAJOR value in some other way- it's a senseless restriction on us. Since it isn't, all it is is a draconian restriction on our basic personal lives.

Re:Prohibition?

[mcgrew]

We were counting on that back in the seventies when marijuana was going to be legal as soon as the goddamned geezers died and we took over. Yet the geezers died, my generation (now geezers ourselves) took over and pot's still not legal. I and many of my generation have discovered that it isn't an age thing, it's an honesty thing.

Pot is still illegal because the rich and powerful who make billions on it want it illegal; anti-dope laws only help growers, smugglers, and sellers. If it became legal the price would drop precipitously.

The same goes for file sharing. What the voter wants is not important; the only thing that's importanat is what the rich and powerful want. As long as the RIAA exists, file sharing will be illegal.

I think I'll smoke a joint and download some Metallica. Bought laws are IMO illigitimate laws and I see no reson to respect them.

Re:Prohibition?

[mcgrew]

here's an example.

Re:Prohibition?

[Monchanger]

I think the point was that BMC, Warner, etc. should have built iTunes before Apple did. Had they been first or even slightly after, competing with them would be very *very* difficult.

Re:Prohibition?

[mcgrew]

Or koolaid. It's been proven by study after study that music pirates spend more money on music than non-pirates. You can get all sorts of physical stuff for free -- just steal it.

Oh, but you don't steal? Well good for you. Most pirates don't, either. People pay because it's the right thing to do. The pirates download both music they would pay for and music they would not, and wind up paying for the music they like.

The RIAA are great propagansists, and great liars.

Re:Prohibition?

[mcgrew]

and what if they dont want to give it away for free?

Then nobody will ever hear of them and they won't make a dime. Nobody ever lost money from piracy, but artists starve from obscurity. I suggest you read the forward (or maybe it's the afterward, it's been a while since I read it) to Cory Doctorow's Little Brother.

Were it not for public libraries I would never have bought an Isaac Asimov book, but because I could read Asimov for free at the library, I wound up spending hundreds of dollars over the years buying his books.

Any writer or musician who is greedy and stupid enough to not want to give it away deserves to starve in obscurity.

Re:Prohibition?

[mcgrew]

Back in the day, they would broadcast entire albums uncut in their entirety on the radio.

KSHE in St. Louis still does. They play seven albums every Sunday night, uncut and uninterrupted.

If you like top-40 music, all you have to do to get all the free top-40 music you want is plug a cord into your radio's headphone jack and your PC's audio in jack and sample for two or three hours, then spend ten minutes with EAC or similar software to cut it into individual songs, which will be as high a fidelity or better than any MP3.

And it's less work and hassle than trying to get the whole top-40 on BitTorrent.

Re:Prohibition?

[NotBornYesterday]

people dont pay for music when THAT SAME MUSIC is available for free.

Wrong. Sure they do. In fact, figures show the exact opposite: iTunes still sells lots of music, despite songs being readily available for download.

There are plenty of online services where people can buy music RIGHT NOW, but sales are still massively down every year

You couldn't possibly be more wrong. I prefer not to drink RIAA kool-aid.

In 2006 there was a rumor that iTunes sales were way off, but that was debunked.

There is increased competition in the online music market, with Amazon and others fighting for a piece of the pie. This is a good thing - it means that artists get more exposure, and consumers get a better deal. It also means that a lot of people who are smart about legal commercial digital distribution see lots of customers - and therefore money - there.

The market continues to evolve, and distributors are still learning through trial and error. iTunes learned an interesting lesson a year ago when they introduced tiered pricing. They discovered - surprise, surprise - that buyers avoided the higher-priced popular tracks, and bought less expensive music, and ended up moving cheaper music up the charts. The lesson: Pricing has an immediate and tangible effect on sales, and consumers still consume, they just choose to consume differently. Duh.

If you can download and own it for free, what incentive would you have to pay for it?

What incentive? Paying the artist. Owning a legit copy. Not everyone wants to rip something off. As a matter of fact, go back and look at the iTunes sales chart I referenced earlier. Look at those billions of songs sold, and tell me that's not a media executive's wet dream.

Re:Prohibition?

[mcgrew]

In the early days, whey you heard a song you liked, you had to buy the album

No you didn't. You could record it off the radio or your friend's album.

Re:Prohibition?

[Scrameustache]

Alcohol prohibition is more like drug prohibition

Alcohol prohibition is an instance of drug prohibition.

Re:Prohibition?

[nine-times]

Yes, that was what I was saying. In my view, the big record companies pretty much handed control over the music industry to Apple. They said, "We're not technologically savvy enough to keep running the music distribution industry. You do it instead."

Now they're like, "Oh, wait... what? Music distribution is what we get paid for?! I didn't realize that. Apple, give it back! We don't care that we're incompetent and don't understand the nature of our own business! We still need money to buy coke and hookers!"

Re:Prohibition?

[Omestes]

what incentive do i as a music consumer have to actually spend my money if all the music can be pirated for free? pro-piracy supporters seem to all conveniently miss this point.

An interesting question that can be approached in several ways. From a pure pragmatic or cynical point of view you can say there is no incentive whatsoever. This ignores the fact that many people who like music there are elements of loyalty, and are willing to spend money on concerts, shirts, and even albums form their favorite band. I have absolutely nothing against piracy, and I still fork over a somewhat obscene amount of money on music, I see every band I like when they hit town (though no more "big" shows, the last couple I saw have been terrible), I buy their albums, I own shirts (in some cases multiple shirts), etc... Why? Because I feel like I should support things I love, even if there is a free alternative. This, I suppose, is why we haven't seen music die, even if most music is freely available online. Your big groups are still chugging along being ridiculously rich, your small independent groups are showing an unprecidented rise in availability and popularity. Piracy is here, and it hasn't really shown any real effect on the music industry.

You also conflate all forms of piracy as something equal. I have a problem with not paying for artists you like. But I have no issue with "pirating" music I already own, albeit in a different format. I have no problem with pirating music from dead musicians, or musicians who get no royalties for my purchase. Music over a certain age i have no issue with (i.e. pirating the Beatles or Lois Armstrong is fine, pirating your local, performing, indie artist isn't). If the artist, themselves, only get a pittance from my purchase, there is no point in buying it, so pirating is fine, as long as you make up for it by seeing them live, or buying something from them. I have no real problem with pirating any artist on an RIAA label, not that I do, since not a single artist I like works under the RIAA anymore.

Another thing you miss, is that the market is a moving target. While album sales was the primary driving force behind music, there is no natural law saying that this must always be true. Some of my favorite bands make their money on "value added" merchandise, like vinyl, artful packaging, extra features, etc...

I have no problem supporting artists, I have a BIG problem being forced to support giant faceless corporations. You don't have the right to profit, and I don't have the obligation to support them.

Re:Prohibition?

[Andorin]

and what if they dont want to give it away for free? but i guess you'll just take it then.

How silly of me to forget. If I disagree with an antipirate, then that makes me a dirty, evul pirate, and none of my arguments matter.

Re:Prohibition?

[aquila.solo]

I tend to agree with your post, but I would caution that whether or not you respect a law doesn't matter in the end. If/when someone chooses to enforce it, you're just as incarcerated (or whatever other punishment they hand down).

I think it's a much smarter (if depressing) course to educate the electorate and push for repeal of unjust laws.</idealism>

Re:Prohibition?

[mcgrew]

You forgot the <pedant> tag. Yes, alcohol is not only a drug but a very adddictive one; addicts can actually die from withdrawal symptoms. But "alcohol prohibition" was only alcohol, while "drug prohibition" is is the prohibition of some, but not all, drugs, so "drug prohibition" is a misnomer as well.

Re:Prohibition?

[Thinboy00]

But most of them don't vote, and even those who can vote often don't bother. The main group of people who do vote are the elderly. Can you see elderly people listening to teenagers?

Re:Prohibition?

[Thinboy00]

If ASCAP gets CC illegal, EFF will get SCOTUS to overturn it based on various amendments and aspects of the Constitution (1st, 14th, and the Copyright Clause come to mind). Is that enough abbrev.s for you?

Re:Prohibition?

[Thinboy00]

Currently, we know that piracy has a minimal impact on just about everything. The average pirate consumes a lot more music than the average consumer. We know this from the law of demand (economics 101: if something is cheap or free, people buy/get more of it than if it is expensive). Thus, the effect of piracy on the market can only be measured in terms of the fraction of the market that pirates, and then you need to take into account that many people will go ahead and buy the music they like. Arguably, piracy increases the total amount of music people buy through the following scenario: I'm unfamiliar with an artist, haven't heard them on the radio, but, without my realizing it, I would probably buy their music if I had heard it. If I pirate their music, I find out that I like it, and then buy it. Plenty of people do this every day.

Re:Prohibition?

[bzipitidoo]

I disagree with the extreme copyright laws that these vested interests have bought. Few people have a problem with "pirating" things that should be out of copyright, such as the works of George Orwell, who died in 1950. Only a few more have a problem with more recent ones, such as Michael Jackson. And most who do object are law and order types who don't feel comfortable breaking any law no matter what it is, and prefer to wait for the law to be changed. They feel that breaking just one law starts a person down the old slippery slope. Nor do I have a problem ignoring shrink wrap, click through EULAs. No one should have to wade through 10 plus pages of lying fine print that tries to tell us that we aren't allowed do all kinds of things that we actually are allowed to do.

They have the power to buy laws. I do not. But they can't make us obey these laws that should never have been passed, and that cost us a great deal of money and harm. How should we fight back? Beat them at their own game of lobbying? Sue them? Or just ignore them? As these laws are practically unenforceable, some sort of loud, expensive campaign is unnecessary. Not worth a fight, any more than it'd be worth playing the NY Yankees against some little league team. The lawmakers may choose whether they want their laws to be respected, or not. I think much piracy is justified. Of course I do not agree with your assertion that I'm just trying to justify and excuse any piracy I may have committed. You think that you are going to persuade anyone otherwise with such insinuations? No mystery why your karma is so low. No, quite the opposite. It is our duty to break these shackles upon our prosperity. We should explore new ways of compensating artists, not cling to old ways that do not work and which cause harm. Whether we pirate or not, we will not convince them of anything, so we may as well not deny ourselves what is rightfully ours. Whatever we do, they'll rationalize it to fit what they believe. If you want to obey the law to the letter and not even download Orwell, good for you. If you feel pirating Orwell is okay but MJ is not, fine. Be glad many of us are not so submissive.

Re:Prohibition?

[mcgrew]

I agree with you, one should fight to repeal/change laws one can't respect.

Don't Stop File-Sharing

[Rik Sweeney]

And Don't Stop Believin', says Journey (and the cast of Glee)

Re:Don't Stop File-Sharing

[jedidiah]

> And Don't Stop Believin', says Journey (and the cast of Glee)

My first copy of that album was on Vinyl. I immediately "format shifted" it to tape.

I'm sure I recorded that song off of the radio before I ever had the album.

Brick In The Wall

[Anonymous Coward]

RIAA, Leave Them Kids Alone!

Re:Brick In The Wall

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't need no regulation!

Incomplete Floyd Albums

[Rockoon]

He is just upset that when the RIAA cracks down, some users will not have gotten a complete Floyd album.

Re:Incomplete Floyd Albums

[nine-times]

In fairness, I don't think they're being inconsistent. The band has decided that, when they sell their music, they only want to sell whole albums. That doesn't tell you what they want to do about the people who aren't buying their albums.

Re:Incomplete Floyd Albums

[mikiN]

"All middle men are bad." - Syd Barrett,

(Melody Maker interview with the Pink Floyd, December 9, 1967)

R.W & Co didn't agree, so that's probably an important reason why Syd left.

R.I.P. Syd.

Re:Incomplete Floyd Albums

[darthdavid]

And, you know, that pesky little insanity thing...

All in all...

[Drakkenmensch]

... another brick in the firewall.

Re:All in all...

[ajlitt]

It doesn't have to be like this.

All we need to do is make sure we keep torrenting.

Re:All in all...

[Julie188]

We don't need no copyright education.

Re:All in all...

[Onomang]

Hey!
Lawyer!
Leave those seeds alone!

Re:All in all...

[mycroft822]

Share on, you crazy pirate.

Re:All in all...

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't need no copyright education.

Yes you do, you just used a double negative.

Congratulations on your 'spotting the reference' fail.

Re:All in all...

[jd]

We don't need no copy 'striction
We don't need no tort control
No two tier chasm in the network
Lawyer! Leave them kids alone!
All in all, it's just another boss with some gall.

Re:All in all...

[biovoid]

We don't need no copyright education.

Yes you do, you just used a double negative.

Congratulations on your 'spotting the reference' fail.

Congratulations on your 'spotting the reference' fail.

An IT Crowd reference too. Hang your head.

Not like they get payed much from recording sales.

[Irick]

The recording industry can go burn for all i really care, though i'd rather artists just release their stuff in the public domain rather then the public making it their domain. I can completely support hurting the recording industry, but I'd rather do it in a way that respects artist's wishes, even if those wishes be that i should not have their material without paying an overpriced fee to a record company I as a consumer do not support. Though that is just my view on the matter, truly i believe that the ends justify the means when it comes to putting the recording industry out. Beyond that, consumer rights should be protected, and that does include the right to fair use of a purchased product.

Deal with the real pirates

[gilesjuk]

The Somali pirates. These are the ones extorting millions out of companies and threatening to kill people.

Re:Deal with the real pirates

[socz]

But they have boats & swords (guns)! Not DSL lines, so they're useless to *IAA!

Re:Deal with the real pirates

[Shakrai]

The US already dealt with them by placing armed men on US flagged vessels and showing a willingness to prosecute any captured pirates in US courts.

Many of the states participating in the naval mission off Somalia claimed that they didn't have jurisdiction to prosecute the pirates they captured and wound up releasing them. AFAIK only a handful of countries (France, the US, Denmark, who else?) have shown a willingness to bring the pirates back to their respective countries and prosecute them for the crimes they have committed.

Re:Deal with the real pirates

[sconeu]

Hey, they're helping to fight global warming!

Re:Deal with the real pirates

[Bert64]

The trouble is, being locked in a french/danish/us prison would probably be an improvement in quality of life for the average somalian pirate... It's not really much of a deterrent.

Re:Deal with the real pirates

[KahabutDieDrake]

What jurisdiction do those countries you name have? Did these acts of piracy take place in US coastal waters? Because if the didn't, I fail to see any legal jurisdiction the USA might have. Further, placing arms on a non-military ship in international waters violates a couple of international accords. While I support the idea of shutting down the murderous thugs, doing so illegally is rather hypocritical, and undermines any righteous goals.

Oh yeah, and why is the US and other countries using their MILITARY to protect civilian cargo ships? Who is paying for that I wonder?

Re:Deal with the real pirates

[mirix]

Which is why the Russians "let the pirates go", presumably on a shitty dinghy with a hole in it and no guidance equipment.

Re:Deal with the real pirates

[RobVB]

Going off-topic here, but seriously, "dealt with them"?

Yes, they did something, but they hardly solved the problem. Piracy in Somalia is still a booming business with massive return on investment, and the payments to individual pirates are ridiculously high compared to Somali average wages. This means there are a lot of interested investors, and there's a near endless supply of expendable people to send on the actual missions.

Trying to solve this situation with military presence in the area (by means of military ships) simply isn't feasible, because of the size of the area. If you secure the Gulf of Aden, which, by the way, is one of the busiest shipping routes in the world, pirates will simply travel further east into the Indian Ocean, as they have on previous occasions. For example, this story is about a ship hijacked 700 nautical miles from the Somali coast. That's a two to three days' journey for a pirate mothership traveling around 12 knots.

The only way we can solve the situation in the seas around Somalia is by solving the situation in Somalia itself. Somalia needs a stable government with an active police force and/or army to do something about the criminals that are ruling the country today.

Re:Deal with the real pirates

[jedidiah]

> I fail to see any legal jurisdiction the USA might have. ...because you're a moron.

Any nation has a right to protect it's ships and sailors at sea. This includes the merchant marine too.

Re:Deal with the real pirates

[cpt kangarooski]

What jurisdiction do those countries you name have?

Pirates are deemed enemies of all humanity; as such, every country has jurisdiction over pirates, though some may be unwilling to exercise it. Check it out.

Oh yeah, and why is the US and other countries using their MILITARY to protect civilian cargo ships?

One of the reasons for a country to have a navy is to maintain that country's free, lawful use of the sea.

Re:Deal with the real pirates

[mister_playboy]

US flagged vessels

Those are practically as mythical as the unicorn. Everybody flies a flag of convenience, most commonly that of Panama.

It's the shipping equivalent of incorporating in the Cayman Islands or having a Swiss bank account.

Re:Deal with the real pirates

[eulernet]

No, it's too dangerous.

It's easier and safer to attack weak people, and to ransom them.

Hmm, it sounds like the RIAA are acting like real pirates.

Re:Deal with the real pirates

[Blakey Rat]

Yeah, and the US is already *lot* more generous than other nations are, pirate-wise.

When a Russian ship catches pirates, they (on the theory that they can't hold them as prisoners since there's no declaration of war and they're non-uniformed*) simply set them adrift on whatever small bits of their boat remain floating after the shells exploded.

Frankly, good for the Russians.

*) This lapse in international law, BTW, is the same one that causes the US all kinds of headaches for terrorists we capture. There really needs to be a new Geneva Convention to address protocol when confronted with non-uniformed belligerents when no state of war exists, including pirates and terrorists.

Re:Deal with the real pirates

[cpt kangarooski]

*) This lapse in international law, BTW, is the same one that causes the US all kinds of headaches for terrorists we capture. There really needs to be a new Geneva Convention to address protocol when confronted with non-uniformed belligerents when no state of war exists, including pirates and terrorists.

Well, if we would agree to, and ratify, Protocols I & II to the Geneva Conventions, which we've basically been ignoring since the 70's, it would help a lot with regard to so-called terrorists on battlefields and such. It would also help if we would respect the spirit of the Geneva Conventions and the rule of law generally. It's not a lapse in international law. It's a lapse in our government.

Many other terrorists are just run-of-the-mill criminals (e.g. the 1993 attack on the WTC) and can be dealt with like any other criminal.

Of course, that's nothing to do with pirates; the status of pirates is already fairly well-established in international law, AFAICT. Various countries might not want to have to deal with the headache of trying pirates and imprisoning them, but they certainly can if they want to.

Re:Deal with the real pirates

[Shakrai]

Trying to solve this situation with military presence in the area (by means of military ships) simply isn't feasible, because of the size of the area

Fortunately you don't have to secure the entire area. You just have to secure safe transit lanes for merchant shipping. A more aggressive posture with our naval assets (how about preemptively attacking ships that sail out of known pirate enclaves?) and use of land forces (targeted raids against those same enclaves) might also prove to be productive.

The only way we can solve the situation in the seas around Somalia is by solving the situation in Somalia itself. Somalia needs a stable government with an active police force and/or army to do something about the criminals that are ruling the country today.

Yeah, because what the West needs is another nation building exercise....

Re:Deal with the real pirates

[hitmark]

funny enough, even they provide some good. They originally got started partially thanks to factory trawlers operating in international waters where making it impossible for the local fishermen to keep people fed. But with the increased pirate activity, those trawlers stay away, meaning the catches for the locals are improving.

Re:Deal with the real pirates

[silentcoder]

>What jurisdiction do those countries you name have? Did these acts of piracy take place in US coastal waters?

There's an ancient naval tradition which I BELIEVE is now international law (but please do correct me if I'm wrong) that the surface of a ship in international waters IS considered the native soil of the sailors. In other words if you are a German on a Spanish ship and you steal a Dutchmen's wallet and get caught, you can be prosecuted in Spain as the crime was committed on Spanish soil.

Assuming I'm right then, if the pirates board the ship - their on U.S. soil even if they are in international waters. Since Somalia has no government to speak off, the only sensible choice by the way is to treat their territorial waters as if it was international waters for the time being.

>Because if the didn't, I fail to see any legal jurisdiction the USA might have.

Well I've given a possible explanation above though I admit I'm no expert and I could be outright wrong. Would be nice if somebody who knew the fine details could elaborate.

>Further, placing arms on a non-military ship in international waters violates a couple of international accords.

This is true, but when has America ever given a damn about those ? International accords and treaties are for America to enforce on other countries, not for America to actually obey themselves. Haven't you paid any attention ?

>While I support the idea of shutting down the murderous thugs, doing so illegally is rather hypocritical, and undermines any righteous goals.

Utterly agreed. Trouble is, none of those guys in the fancy suits whose pictures are printed on ballots every now and then could possibly understand this concept.

>Oh yeah, and why is the US and other countries using their MILITARY to protect civilian cargo ships? Who is paying for that I wonder?

That would be you and me paying. But using the military to protect civilian infrastructure from armed assault is nothing new or unusual, in fact it's one of the military's basic functions. The fact that in this case the infrastructure is off-shore is fairly irrelevant to THAT part of the discussion (it is however relevent to other aspects like international law).

Re:Deal with the real pirates

[silentcoder]

>Isn't the whole reason for the military to protect civilians? The only other reason is to conquer other nations but we consider ourselves to be more civilised than that these days.

Unless they have something you want. Like oil.

>It's my understanding that piracy in international waters has always been punishable by any nation that felt threatened by such actions. It's been pretty well established for centuries.

Aye this is true.

>Mind you, punishing the pirates doesn't get to the route of the problem. Deal with overfishing and illegal dumping as well. These people are pirates because they don't have any other choice. There's no way for them to earn an honest living. They become pirates or starve. The risk of being captured and sentenced to life in prison is small compared with the certainty of death. Punish them by all means, but for practical purposes we should provide an opportunity for another way of life.

While I agree with what you're saying - both those problems were caused in their case because nobody was policing the waters. The real solution to the whole mess in it's entirety is to stabilize the country and get a real government in place. Somalia right now doesn't EVEN have anarchy. It's a bunch of feuding warlords all hoping to become a military dictator but none ever quite powerful enough to pull it off. They spend all their time fighting one another and nobody spends any time running the country, handling diplomacy or providing any kind of infrastructure, economic or other service. There is no law enforcement and even if there was, no law to be enforced.
I am one of those people who think anarchist societies can sometimes work, that governments are usually bad -but Somalia is a prime example that merely not having a government doesn't give you a working anarchist society. Without the right kind of social structures and protections in place, you just get a shithole where life has no value and prospects are things that happen to other people.
The only kind of business that would want to venture there is the kind who sees real value in the lack of law. Organised crime mostly. Perhaps the more ethically questionable types of genetic research. But even those guys stay away because there is no education system and whatever you build will get looted, if you put in enough security to prevent looting by the population then you'll get looted by the warlords who are always desperate for any kind of supplies.

Re:Deal with the real pirates

[silentcoder]

>(how about preemptively attacking ships that sail out of known pirate enclaves?)
So holding people without trail because they are "suspected terrorists" for indefinite periods aren't enough... now you want to attack ships at sea without them having done anything simply because pirates use the same harbor ?

You know a lot of car hijackers use the brooklyn bridge. Let's pre-emptively shoot at every car that drives over it...

Or we can give other nations and their citizens the same innocent-till-proven guilty position we demand for ourselves and punish the actual pirates, not every bloody fisherman who is still trying to make a living honestly - because then they will ALL be pirates since you removed the possibility of being anything else.

>Yeah, because what the West needs is another nation building exercise....

If the West doesn't want to be building nations ... maybe it should stop destroying them in the first place ? Western interference was the primary reason Somalia's original government collapsed and that government wasn't great (it was a post-collonial government) so you can trace the West CAUSING the pirate problem back to raping the country for about 300 years.
Then when the government collapsed, the West made NO effort to prevent corporate ships from overfishing those unpoliced shores and polluting them until the local fishing industry (the ONLY local industry) collapsed....
The West created this problem - it's our responsibility to solve it, or deal with the consequences of our own decisions.

Re:Deal with the real pirates

[Shakrai]

now you want to attack ships at sea without them having done anything simply because pirates use the same harbor ?

Yes. When the Somalis are willing to behave in the manner of civilized nations then they can have the same rights as those civilized nations. As long as they permit their citizens to commit crimes on the high seas they have no grounds to complain when we deny them access to those same seas.

If the West doesn't want to be building nations ... maybe it should stop destroying them in the first place ? Western interference was the primary reason Somalia's original government collapsed and that government wasn't great (it was a post-collonial government) so you can trace the West CAUSING the pirate problem back to raping the country for about 300 years. Then when the government collapsed, the West made NO effort to prevent corporate ships from overfishing those unpoliced shores and polluting them until the local fishing industry (the ONLY local industry) collapsed.... The West created this problem - it's our responsibility to solve it, or deal with the consequences of our own decisions.

What's that noise I hear? It sounds like the World's smallest violin.....

Re:Deal with the real pirates

[RobVB]

Fortunately you don't have to secure the entire area. You just have to secure safe transit lanes for merchant shipping.

This picture might be old, but it does illustrate the point. There are dozens of traffic lanes in the Indian Ocean, and if you secure one the pirates will attack the next. You can't expect to secure dozens of shipping lanes, each thousands of miles long.

Regarding your other post,

Yes. When the Somalis are willing to behave in the manner of civilized nations then they can have the same rights as those civilized nations. As long as they permit their citizens to commit crimes on the high seas they have no grounds to complain when we deny them access to those same seas.

I'd hardly call Somalia a nation. It's an area that's been in civil war for almost 20 years, there's about 30 groups struggling over control, their waters are being plundered by international fishing ships, and "in the coastal areas of war-ridden Somalia, piracy still is the only show in town, the only booming economy." (source)

Words like "nation" and "allowing" their "citizens" don't apply here. It's harder to survive there than most of us can imagine, and piracy is their one source of income.

If you won't take my word for it (and I sincerely hope you won't), I suggest you read this article, written by someone who spent the last 17 years covering the situation in Somalia, and knows what he's talking about.

Re:Deal with the real pirates

[Shakrai]

You can't expect to secure dozens of shipping lanes, each thousands of miles long.

Except that we managed to do exactly that against a nation-state that was bent on closing those same shipping lanes. Twice as a matter of fact. Securing shipping lanes against savages in speedboats with AK-47s is child's play compared to that.

It's harder to survive there than most of us can imagine, and piracy is their one source of income.

Cry me a river. Maybe they should turn all those AK-47s and RPGs on the people that are ripping their country apart instead of merchant sailors just trying to earn a living?

Re:Deal with the real pirates

[thijsh]

The pirates *are* Somalia's navy! The country has no army to speak of (started a new army in 2004), and it was my understanding the pirates actually started out as some kind of freedom fighter fisherman attempting to stop international fishing trawlers from emptying their waters (the lack of a navy kinda made it a free for all). So this would not apply in this case, since their status was not quite so clear, it could be considered a peoples army at the start...

This of course changed fast enough because poor starving people smelling an opportunity for easy money also became pirates... But even when doing the math all the pirates loot together is much less than the monetary value of even the fish taken from their seas (I don't want to bother finding the article about this, but there have been several). So overall the Somali pirates were fighting a losing battle against the international community pillaging them...

Calling that sad bunch of fishermen an enemy of mankind is a little over the top in my opinion. The term used to be valid centuries ago for hard criminals without a country, but more recently it has been abused by the US to attempt to gain illegal jurisdiction over citizens of other counties, in the other country... So I guess in the new-world-order-of-the-US-definition it would be perfectly valid to call them enemies of mankind, it makes it easier to 'take care' of the problem because it seems slightly less illegal. Oh yeah, and the US also forgot that according to their new definitions we could declare a lot of CIA torturers enemies of mankind and prosecute them no matter where their crimes are committed... Fucking double standards, don't buy into terms like these that are only meant to give some validity to dubious morally-unsound politics!

Re:Deal with the real pirates

[91degrees]

It amuses me that you deduce I'm a naive idiot because you happen to be too stupid to recognise irony.

Re:lol.... BT is worthless...

[Yvan256]

I thought BlueTooth was quite popular with cellphone users, but I guess I was wrong.

Article summary misleading

[by (1706743)]

If you read TFA while watching an old Judy Garland flick on groovy couches with a bunch of your friends from college, you'll see that the naive interpretation of Jenner's sentiment given in the summary is way off.

Get it right next time, man.

Re:Article summary misleading

[Steauengeglase]

You left out the part about several species Of small furry animals gathered together in a cave and grooving with a pict.

Peter Jenner - not just PF

[Anonymous Coward]

If - like me - you asked yourself who exactly he is: Jenner has managed Pink Floyd, T Rex, Ian Dury, Roy Harper, The Clash, The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, Robyn Hitchcock, Baaba Maal and Eddi Reader (Fairground Attraction). And Billy Bragg! Jenner and his wife Sumi set up Sincere Management which managed a range of artists. (from wikipedia)

Re:Peter Jenner - not just PF

[MacWiz]

Jenner was also involved with Choruss a couple of years ago, a project that Jim Griffin was doing (running? Promoting?) for Warner Music which was aimed at providing a sanctioned RIAA service for U.S. universities. This comes from an e-mail that Griffin sent me.

This was the outgrowth of Griffin's original assignment at Warner, which was to come up with something that would create a "pool of money" from which artists would be paid -- after the labels took their share.

Regardless of your opinion of Peter Jenner himself, the fact that he is now saying "Don't stop file sharing" is significant. Then read the other article (in today's batch of stories) from NewYorkCountryLawyer that talks about how the RIAA spent $64 million between 2006-2008 to collect about $1.4 million from the evil college students that are "stealing their stuff."

The RIAA has lost this war, exactly like ASCAP lost their battle with radio from 1923 to 1940.

They just haven't surrendered yet.

Re:Peter Jenner - not just PF

[Jedi Alec]

The RIAA has lost this war, exactly like ASCAP lost their battle with radio from 1923 to 1940.

A few battles perhaps, but the war is far from over. Several countries still seem more than happy to go ahead with 3-strikes laws, deploying public servants to do the enforcement for private companies and other assorted fun. Fortunately, and we do have to give some credit to the pirate party, public awareness of the issue seems to be growing and politicians are starting to figure out that pissing off one's constituency to suck the cock of a foreign corporation tends to lead to poor results in the next election cycle.

Re:Speaking of Prohibition

[Monkeedude1212]

In Canada we have on the extremely rare occasion had Referendums dealing with important legislation. I believe the last national one we held was in 1992? And there are provincial ones every decade or so. We had one upon the subject of Prohibition in the 20's, which I think actually ended up passing, but was repealed shortly thereafter because of its unenforceable nature. Exactly what Mr Pink up there is saying.

But I disagree when he says

It's absurd to expect ordinary members of the public to think about what they're allowed to do [with CDs, digital downloads, etc]... and then ask themselves whether it's legal or not

No, I don't think it's absurd at all - in Canada we may have still ended up voting in favour of it (51.2 for and 48.8 against) - but at least its not a crazy idea to, you know, ASK the general public.

Main problem is revenue

[cdrguru]

If music, movies, software and books are freely distributed they pretty much have zero value. There will be some very talented folks that are also independently wealthy (or have gotten rich from when their music had value) that can afford to work for nothing. The rest of the world is going to do something that pays the rent and the grocery bill.

This will certainly leave the field open to whomever wants to distribute their stuff because they know thiers has value. Most of this will be like Darwin Reedy that can't imagine the world being without her talent.

Fine, if that is where we really want to go.

Probably the biggest single problem is that we have nearly 100 years of highly-compensated, highly-valued works that without copyright protection and enforcement will be grabbed up by the mega-distribution companies. Sure, you want a complete collection of Henry Fonda's movies - $5. The problem is that it cost the distribution company $0 to do this and the only ones making any money from it are the likes of Walmart and Sony. They can afford to out-distribute anyone else on the planet - no matter how many hits your warez/torrent site gets.

Another side effect here is that without copyright protection and enforcement anything that is passed around for free will also get grabbed up by the mega-distributors if is any good. So they get to make money off the artists anyway. Still. Without any hope of compensation. Quite possibly without any attribution unless it helps sales.

No matter how hard you try, you aren't going to get rid of the distribution companies. They will "make" (as in manufacture) pop stars out of whole cloth as needed just to drive sales. They will have the tools (promotion and distribution) to do this. Sure, you can get rid of the RIAA, Warner Brothers, and EMI. But they will simply be replaced by Walmart, Sony and Amazon. With less favorable terms for the artists and less favorable terms for the purchasors.

Re:Main problem is revenue

[rpervinking]

Every Henry Fonda movie is over 25 years old. Copyright doesn't need to last that long in order for the artists to receive some reasonable compensation. The fact that a crazy long copyright period made a bunch of people richer than they would otherwise be is not interesting to me.

From everything I've ever observed about performers, good ones, they'd do it for free if they couldn't get paid to do it. Losing a shot at retiring on the proceeds of one big hit wouldn't stop a single artist. It might slow down the creation of media personalities and blockbuster special-effects extravaganzas, but not artists. Color me unconcerned with the future of civilization.

Re:Main problem is revenue

[Afecks]

If music, movies, software and books are freely distributed they pretty much have zero value. There will be some very talented folks that are also independently wealthy (or have gotten rich from when their music had value) that can afford to work for nothing. The rest of the world is going to do something that pays the rent and the grocery bill.

I find it hilarious that some people think that without copyright laws nobody would want to support artists when the very fact that copyright laws exist is a demonstration that people want to support artists! If you think it's not then that means you think that the majority of people don't really want to support artists but they do want the government to hold a gun to their heads and force them to do it. Huh? What?

Re:Main problem is revenue

[Dumnezeu]

But Walmart, Sony and Amazon already have competition: torrent files and magnet links already provide you with the same content and quality for free.

Re:Main problem is revenue

[0123456]

There will be some very talented folks that are also independently wealthy (or have gotten rich from when their music had value) that can afford to work for nothing. The rest of the world is going to do something that pays the rent and the grocery bill.

I know plenty of people making movies, software and music that will never make them any money. I know about three million people writing novels that will never make them any money.

I also know one person who does make money from making movies who's publically stated that he thinks P2P helps his sales because people see one of ihs movies and then buy others. Of course he doesn't pay his actors $200,000,000 for six weeks' work.

No matter how hard you try, you aren't going to get rid of the distribution companies.

In a digital world the only benefit that distributors provide is advertising; people see your music/song/novel on that distributor's site and buy it. Otherwise you can just sell from your own web site.

Re:Main problem is revenue

[Anonymous Coward]

well I tend to disagree. The typical Artist only receives $23 out of $1000 in sales from the RIAA. I bet (and history agrees) that people will freely donate more than $23 for what would have previously cost them $1000. Also Artists make most of they're money from live shows and concerts. As far as they are concerned RIAA is just publicity to get people to the concert.

With distribution cost down to practically nothing, releasing a song/album on your website with a donate button (paypal, ect). and a link to the torrent is the way to go.

Re:Main problem is revenue

[2obvious4u]

Peter Jenner has one thing right: the general public doesn't understand why they can have a song on their ipod and why they can't just copy the file to their friends ipod. What is wrong about that? The only thing wrong is that someone said it was illegal.

Now if that same person has a band t-shirt they would then have to give up their band t-shirt to give it to their friend. That is where there is value that can be controlled by distributors. The artists will not starve, they will make their money on merchandising and live performances. They need to give up on making money on bits. They should be using bits to advertise their merchandise and live events - things that can be monetized.

Now lets say that Apple uses a song from a band without their permission to promote their products? That is a valid use of copyright law, the business is profiting off of the endorsement of the artist without the artists permission. A consumer spreading the works of the artists does nothing but improve the popularity of the artist, a business associating themselves with an artist has the potential to tarnish the artists reputation hence the need for them to be able to sue that company. Imagine if BP used Bono's music in their cleanup ads for the oil spill, then it puts Bono in a bad light.

The problem with stopping file sharing is how it limits communication. If you are speaking about a piece of music, a movie, a book, or news article is that we now have the ability to perfectly convey what part we are talking about. We just link to it. It is a great way to enhance communication and should be encouraged. If IP law is changed it needs to allow for this type of communication. Viral spreading of information should be encouraged, even if torrent sights like bit torrent are condemned (one is organic spreading of information, another is centralized distribution for monetary gain). Basically if you are making money off of someone else they are owed compensation, if however you are just spreading information all you are doing is advertising for them for free.

For something like an OS, or Office software, the software could be free and all income from the software could come from training and support. Yeah the company won't become a 250 billion dollar giant like microsoft or apple, but do we really need to be aggregating funds into a few companies. I don't think those companies would be in bad shape if they were just a 5-10 billion dollar company. That is 240 billion that could be going into making actual goods. It could be used to build housing, hiring employees, buying cars, etc. Hell everyone could donate all that extra money to the space program and we could build a public hotel on the moon. It is just a horrible waist of funds to drop $300 on a piece of software that 6 billion people use (I'm thinking windows on the majority of consumer desktops - they make enough funds off of businesses that it should be free to consumers). Yes I know I've been smoking the Utopian cool aid, but at no point in history has humanity been able to give something to every person on the planet. We can't do it with food, clothing, shelter, but we can do it with digital information. Yes there is money to be made on it, but it shouldn't be criminal to share information and it definitely isn't immoral.

Re:Main problem is revenue

[Monkeedude1212]

If music, movies, software and books are freely distributed they pretty much have zero value. There will be some very talented folks that are also independently wealthy (or have gotten rich from when their music had value) that can afford to work for nothing. The rest of the world is going to do something that pays the rent and the grocery bill.

The "Rest of the world doing something" in terms of musicians usually equates to shows and merchandise at said shows, since they make about Minimum wage from a record going gold anyways. If a song had zero value - the only people it would hurt is the distributors, not the artists. We've had a few stories on here about how artists don't make much money, if any at all, on record sales.

There are many bands, even big ones, that can afford to give their music away for free online because they make much more in shows. I believe Audioslave or Soundgarden did this once, someone mentioned it earlier. And a lot of Indie labels do this as well. Plus I think Trent Reznor was pushing for this with Nine Inch Nails? Or something like that.

Even software could work along a similar line, more like contract work. You get commissioned to a job, you do it, you get paid. End of story, don't worry about licensing, and distribution, your work is done and you got paid a sum.

Sure, the distribution companies might not GO AWAY, they'll still be around trying to push out artists - but its entirely possible that they won't be the ones in charge, and independant labels that give away music for free are the ones on top.

Re:Main problem is revenue

[John Whitley]

What on earth are you talking about? You're making up a random argument ("without copyright protection and enforcement") that has nothing to do with the summary or TFA. Those discuss the reprehensible and inefficient tactics of suing members of the general public for file-sharing, and warping of the law to suit the tastes of large rightsholders (e.g. the US' DMCA and similar). No mention is made of eliminating copyright or of not enforcing against corporations (who damn well should know better).

As far as revenue in the real world, many independent artists and small labels (often a single individual) have cropped up in recent years who are successfully selling non-DRM'ed downloadable music to the general public, either directly or via intermediaries (c.f. Amazon, Beatport, iTunes, etc., etc.). For the small artists, I expect they are likely doing vastly better than they ever would through a traditional recording company contract.

Re:Main problem is revenue

[0123456]

Plus I think Trent Reznor was pushing for this with Nine Inch Nails? Or something like that.

Nine Inch Nails have been releasing their music under a CC license for a few years now, as well as selling it from their web site in FLAC format (I think) or on CD. I'm guessing they probably make more money from that than they did from their 2.3% cut of RIAA CD sales.

Re:Main problem is revenue

[zmollusc]

If BP used Bono's music in their cleanup ads for the oil spill, then it would put BP in a bad light.

Re:Main problem is revenue

[phantomfive]

lol that was the best laugh I've had all week. Darwin Reedy deserves her own show, she's hilarious.

Re:Main problem is revenue

[icebraining]

http://www.severedfifth.com/

Re:Main problem is revenue

[Bert64]

Sure, you would still get those who can't imagine the world without their questionable talent...
You would also get those who have a real passion for their work, some who are good some who are bad...

On the plus site, you wouldn't get the manufactured bands who couldn't care less about music and who are only in it for the money...
You would also still get people performing live, you know actually working to earn their money instead of sitting back and collecting royalties for years.

In years gone by sure the big distributors would have screwed everyone, these days distribution via the internet is cheap and easy, and if it were legal far more people would be doing it. Most people who don't use torrents or equivalent distribution methods either think it's wrong, or are scared by fud about malware etc.

Re:Main problem is revenue

[Thing 1]

If music, movies, software and books are freely distributed they pretty much have zero value.

Completely false. I've read many older works from Project Gutenberg that enriched my life: the works of Mark Twain; Da Vinci; Einstein's theory of relativity; Machiavelli; O Henry; and many more.

Don't you dare try telling me that the works that have enriched my life for free have zero value. It's true, I spent zero dollars on them. That doesn't at all mean that the value transfer was equivalent in both directions.

The Public Domain is truly a force to be reckoned with, even if the USA has gutted it in the past century.

Yeah, sure, you can still buy all these books in a bookstore. But with Project Gutenberg (and a good reader), why would you?

Re:Main problem is revenue

[Thing 1]

Yes I know I've been smoking the Utopian cool aid, but at no point in history has humanity been able to give something to every person on the planet. We can't do it with food, clothing, shelter, but we can do it with digital information.

Yes, we can currently; and, soon, we'll be able to do it with physical goods. I can't wait for the Singularity, even if it means my transformation into something I'll no longer recognize.

Re:Main problem is revenue

[zippthorne]

. It might slow down the creation of media personalities and blockbuster special-effects extravaganzas, but not artists. Color me unconcerned with the future of civilization.

Interesting.

So you're saying it might slow down the creation of the very kind of movies that I'm actually interested in...

Not every low budget film is "Reservoir Dogs" or "Pulp Fiction." Most of them are "Blair Witch Project."

Re:Main problem is revenue

[tehcyder]

Imagine if BP used Bono's music in their cleanup ads for the oil spill, then it puts Bono in a bad light.

No, I think it would actually put BP in a bad light.

Re:Main problem is revenue

[tehcyder]

For something like an OS, or Office software, the software could be free and all income from the software could come from training and support. Yeah the company won't become a 250 billion dollar giant like microsoft or apple, but do we really need to be aggregating funds into a few companies. I don't think those companies would be in bad shape if they were just a 5-10 billion dollar company. That is 240 billion that could be going into making actual goods. It could be used to build housing, hiring employees, buying cars, etc. Hell everyone could donate all that extra money to the space program and we could build a public hotel on the moon. It is just a horrible waist of funds to drop $300 on a piece of software that 6 billion people use (I'm thinking windows on the majority of consumer desktops - they make enough funds off of businesses that it should be free to consumers)

Because in the real world, when companies make cost savings, it always goes to fund good works.

Re:Main problem is revenue

[SleazyRidr]

Only because Bono is already such a well-know figure. Substitute Bono for another singer/social activist of whom you're only slightly aware.

Re:Main problem is revenue

[NoOneInParticular]

The point remains that copyright doesn't need to be 70+ years after the artists death to be profitable. It should be fairly easy to compute the number of years of copyright a movie should have to lose at most 1% of the total value that can be drawn from the movie. Averaged over all movies, that probably will not be more than 10 years. What is this 70+ based on? I personally do not think that a copyright term of at most 10 years for movies would actually slow down the creation of media personalities and special-effect extravaganzas. Why should they if my hunch is right and 99% of the value is made in those first 10 years?

Re:It's absurd - cut and past oddity

[Andorin]

""It's absurd to expect ordinary members of the public to think "

Really?

Nice out-of-context quote. -1 troll.

How? A ban on liquor is equated to a making music copying illegal?

Yes. Antipiracy laws make illegal a behavior that pretty much everyone is doing anyway, and that is just about impossible to stop. Fighting the War on Piracy is a waste of time just like the War on Booze was- and here's a hint: the feds gave up on the War on Booze.

Re:Speaking of Prohibition

[Monkeedude1212]

By that last sentence, I was referring to still voting for prohibition.

Re:Speaking of Prohibition

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly what Mr Pink up there is saying.

By the way, which one's Pink?

More creative accounting

[SnarfQuest]

It might just be more creative accounting on their part. They can apply the costs of looking for these "pirates" against the artists earnings, and apply any money collected to their own pockets. They get to screw both the artists and the pirates, while getting more wealth.

There's someone on my pipe and it's not me...

[sconeu]

[this post intentionally left blank except for this text and the sig]

Re:It's absurd - cut and past oddity

[Monkeedude1212]

How? A ban on liquor is equated to a making music copying illegal

In that both of them were pretty much unenforcable.

"It's absurd to expect ordinary members of the public to think "

Really?

Well yeah I disagree there, in Canada we had a referendum regarding prohibition, which is asking the ordinary members of the public to vote on the issue. So the idea isn't absurd, though since Canada is many many many multitudes smaller than the states, it might be impractical there. I mean, our elections are over in 1 day.

Sudden outbreak of common sense, or...

[itsdapead]

...a momentary lapse of unreason.

Re:Sudden outbreak of common sense, or...

[qc_dk]

A man lies and dreams of bit fields and torrents, but awakes to a morning with no reason to waking

Failed prophesies

[betterunixthanunix]

"If people copy this, nobody will make it anymore!"

We keep hearing this, yet new music, movies, books, and software continue to be produced. Why do people continue spouting this crap? It is as if you are praying for it to happen just so you can say, "told you so!"

Re:Failed prophesies

[tehcyder]

"If people copy this, nobody will make it anymore!"

We keep hearing this, yet new music, movies, books, and software continue to be produced. Why do people continue spouting this crap? It is as if you are praying for it to happen just so you can say, "told you so!"

You can produce music, books and software for little more than the cost of your time, but good luck making something like Avatar on your weekends off, with a borrowed camcorder.

Re:Failed prophesies

[betterunixthanunix]

Good point -- Avatar was produced after a full decade of people downloading unauthorized movies at an increasing rate.

Ignorance of the law excuses no one

[eples]

'It's absurd to expect ordinary members of the public to think about what they're allowed to do [with CDs, digital downloads, etc]... and then ask themselves whether it's legal or not.'

Ignorantia juris non excusat.

I sympathize, and to some extent I agree, but it's not a legal defense and it doesn't legitimize breaking copyright law. Howabout just not making copies of things you paid for? How hard is that to remember.

Re:Ignorance of the law excuses no one

[Andorin]

Howabout just not making copies of things you paid for? How hard is that to remember.

It's not hard to remember, but it's also unjust. We have fair use for a reason, including format-shifting and creating backups.

Re:Ignorance of the law excuses no one

[KahabutDieDrake]

How about I copy anything I damn well please and you can shove your artificial scarcity into the nearest orifice? In fact, let me give you a simple choice. Continue this charade of an economy based on "scarcity", OR create an economic paradigm where cost+value = price.

Everyone, including the so called "artists" has a right to make money on their works. Those that provide good works for reasonable prices with high levels of value, will. Those that rely on lying, cheating, stealing and trickery, and control of distribution... won't. The real world has shown this, time and again. Music and media is the latest in a long line of battlefields fought for rational economics. Of course, money and power tend to win out of rational thought, at least for a time. The fight is costing us far more than the shift in paradigms will, and it's not even delaying the shift. Itunes is the number 1 music market in the world. That didn't take long. How much longer before Apple realizes they can cut the middle men out and just open their own publishing studio?

There are a lot of really talented people in the music industry. Almost none of them work with or for the RIAA anymore. Once the plaque of lawyers is done picking the bones, the RIAA, and most of the rest of the "professional recording" industry will collapse and reform, hopefully into something a little more intelligent and rational. (I know, call me an idealist).

Re:Ignorance of the law excuses no one

[willabr]

Us..... and them...... And after all were only ordinary men.

Re:Ignorance of the law excuses no one

[JCZwart]

How about just not making copies of things you paid for? How hard is that to remember.

In the eyes of your average consumer, it's illogical. You want to borrow my CD, so I give it to you. You want to borrow my MP3, so I copy it for you. That's all that average Joe will ever understand about this.

Yeah, he's my hero

[elrous0]

It's funny to me that so many most of these artists and rebels like to bad-mouth the music industry after they hit it big. But, it's strange, I never once hear them complain when they're nobodies and a big studio shows up to give them a contract and a check. Oh yeah, it's easy to shoot your mouth off now that you're famous. But what about back when you were a club band? What about all those years when the studio was paying your bills before you had even hit it big, when there was a very good chance that you wouldn't even MAKE it big? The studio took a chance on your then and helped promote you, helped MAKE you big. Now it's all-too-easy to forget the risk they took on you back then and the work they did to promote you.

So now when these bands can can take their fame for granted they want to go indie, release their new albums on their website, and start saying that they don't NEED those evil studios after all. But without those evil studios, no one would even give a shit about their albums or concerts. Most of them would still be just another indie club band, like thousands of others who never got signed.

Yeah, it's easy to be generous when you're already in a mansion.

Re:Yeah, he's my hero

[Andorin]

The Internet, and therefore the issue of file sharing, wasn't around back then. Try again, please.

Re:Yeah, he's my hero

[lurcher]

But what about back when you were a club band? What about all those years when the studio was paying your bills before you had even hit it big, when there was a very good chance that you wouldn't even MAKE it big? The studio took a chance on your then and helped promote you, helped MAKE you big. Now it's all-too-easy to forget the risk they took on you back then and the work they did to promote you.

While its conceivable that some labels did that in the past, I think you are describing something that just doesn't happen anymore. So its a bit of a vacuous argument to make now.

Oh, and BTW, I think EMI did just fine from Pink Floyd, that was EMI before they sold themself to venture capitalists.

Re:Yeah, he's my hero

[yuhong]

Yes, but there is also the issue of "RIAA" accounting which was discussed in another Slashdot article. Anyone know about the history of it?

Re:Yeah, he's my hero

[tehcyder]

The Internet, and therefore the issue of file sharing, wasn't around back then. Try again, please.

That doesn't answer the point that bands at the time couldn't do without the music industry to make it, and so it is now hypocritical of them to bite the hand that fed them.

Re:Yeah, he's my hero

[Andorin]

So you're essentially saying that he shouldn't be able to criticize the recording industry, although he came from a time in which things were very different (the point that you TOTALLY ignored) and the media corporations had powerful monopolies on music. You're saying that he shouldn't be able to say the RIAA and its members are antiquated now that bands can make it without these labels. Where is the logic in what you're saying?

reference

[jDeepbeep]

For those who missed the reference from the PF album Division Bell

It doesn't have to be like this
All we need to do is make sure we keep talking

Re:reference

[KlomDark]

Yep, caught it immediately, but thanks!

Re:Speaking of Prohibition

[PhunkySchtuff]

He's the one who's not Mr Clock.

Re:Speaking of Prohibition

[zmollusc]

Mod parent +1 Cigar

Sell services, not copies

[nine-times]

He said the industry could adopt the model of sites such as Rapidshare, which offers paying subscribers the opportunity to get faster downloads. "If we can get £1 a month from every person on this island [Great Britain] for music... this is getting very close to the current level of revenue for recorded music," Jenner claimed.

I've been saying for years that the music industry (and movie industry) should change their business model on the Internet to sell services rather than copies. Say, "For a low monthly fee, you can have free access to our super-fast servers that have all the newest releases and a huge back catalog (every piece of music ever recorded)." Divide up the profits from that service to pay royalties.

At least speaking for myself, I'm quite sure the music industry could make more money off of me during my lifetime by offering a $X/month service of providing all-you-can-eat drm-free music downloads than... well, any other business model I can think of. Give me a bundled deal including all movies and TV shows, and I'd pay a decent monthly fee.

You probably don't even need DRM. I know, you're thinking that people will just download the whole catalog in a month and then cancel their subscription, but that's really more trouble than it's worth. You have to go through all the trouble of downloading, storing, and backing up all that data. And then your computer crashes or a file gets corrupt, and you have to do it all over again. You quit again, but then a new song comes out that you want, so you'll have to resubscribe.

Most people will may for a service that makes their lives more convenient. Make a service that makes it easy to find and enjoy the media you want. Add a good recommendation engine on top of it. Price it competitively with cableTV+Rhapsody. Watch the money roll in.

Re:Sell services, not copies

[MickyTheIdiot]

Every industry fights like this when their gravy train is destroyed by new technology. The bigger the gravy train was, the more litigious it gets. It's a lot easier to pay a lawyer to scream than it is to redesign the business model that you thought 30 years ago was going to last for all times.

Re:Sell services, not copies

[znerk]

Make a service that makes it easy to find and enjoy the media you want. Add a good recommendation engine on top of it. Price it competitively with cableTV+Rhapsody. Watch the money roll in.

You pretty much just described Pandora's business model. They have a free internet radio service that works something like this: You tell them what kind of music you want to hear, they let you listen to it (and things like it, thanks to their "music genome project"), they link everything to Amazon and iTunes so you can buy it if you like it, and POOF! They make money. Adding their "pay us and you can stop getting ads with your music" service just ices their cake.

Disclaimer: I don't have any affiliation with pandora.com, I'm just an avid listener and paying subscriber.

Re:Sell services, not copies

[pandrijeczko]

Personally, I don't see any problem with the existing music business model.

Firstly, I don't consider musician royalties to be any of my business as a music fan. If you make a decision to try to make a living from your music then as far as I'm concerned it's a case of getting a good lawyer & negotiating your record company contract. After that, if you still feel you're being screwed by the record companies, then maybe you're not good enough to be making money from your music - so go train to do something else.

Secondly, as a music fan, I only care about the end product - i.e. that it represents good value for money. As far as I'm aware, my buying a music CD has not helped maintain poverty in the Third World or damaged too many trees (not that I'm particularly into that hippie crap anyway). If I've spent £10 on a CD that I've enjoyed for 30 years of my life, then that's good value for money.

Thirdly, people that justify music piracy are too stupid to realise that the music is there to be had in the first place because enough honest people like me go out and buy it the first place. Therefore, people like me subsidise their music habits and if we all chose to pirate music, then none of it would be made and they'd have nothing to download. Which is where the whole piracy argument falls flat on its face.

Fourthly, if you think music (or anything else) is too expensive then get a backbone and don't buy it or pirate it. Capitalism works when market forces determine the price of something, not when the market creates a reason to keep the price of music high because the honest people have to constantly subsidise the dishonest people by what they pay.

Lastly, don't pirate music and pretend you're doing it out of concern for what the musician may or may not be earning. The bottom line is that when I buy the CD, the musician *may* be getting something whereas when you pirate the music, the musician is *definitely* getting nothing for their work.

Re:Sell services, not copies

[Andorin]

Personally, I don't see any problem with the existing music business model.

Fundamentally it's based on artificial scarcity of something that can be endlessly copied for virtually no cost. You do not see a problem with this?

If you make a decision to try to make a living from your music then as far as I'm concerned it's a case of getting a good lawyer & negotiating your record company contract.

So let's see. Joe Startup Artist is supposed to try to negotiate with Big Music Corporation, which has dozens of new artists just like him lined up outside the door for the chance to throw themselves at the very contract he's trying to negotiate. Big Music Corporation has every reason to tell Joe Startup Artist to piss off if he doesn't like the abusive terms of the contract. Considering that a lawyer good enough to solve this problem would likely cost more than Joe Startup Artist makes in six months at Wal-Mart, how exactly do you suggest that he gain some leverage against Big Music Corporation?

After that, if you still feel you're being screwed by the record companies, then maybe you're not good enough to be making money from your music - so go train to do something else.

Dude, if I were a musician, I'd be extremely pissed at you for saying that. You're saying that the only people who are good enough to make money from their music are those that manage to wrestle it from their predatory record label. Never mind the fact that that particular attribute cannot be used to judge music quality.

Thirdly, people that justify music piracy are too stupid to realise that the music is there to be had in the first place because enough honest people like me go out and buy it the first place. Therefore, people like me subsidise their music habits and if we all chose to pirate music, then none of it would be made and they'd have nothing to download. Which is where the whole piracy argument falls flat on its face.

Bull fucking shit. You're asserting that without copyright protection everyone would just download music and therefore no music would ever be made. Bull, fucking, shit.

The bottom line is that when I buy the CD, the musician *may* be getting something whereas when you pirate the music, the musician is *definitely* getting nothing for their work.

When you buy the CD, the vast majority of what you pay goes towards the record labels and lets them fund continued multi-thousand-dollar lawsuits against casual music sharers, as well as continued lobbying of governments for harsher copyright law and more invasive enforcement. Kind of cuts away your moral high ground.

Re:Sell services, not copies

[yuhong]

Fundamentally it's based on artificial scarcity of something that can be endlessly copied for virtually no cost. You do not see a problem with this?

I in fact have an entire series on this on my blog: http://yuhongbao.blogspot.com/2010/06/artificial-scarcity-intro.html

Re:Sell services, not copies

[Odetta2012]

I disagree. Friends of mine recently acquired music from other friends for free. Said friends then took their family to see d-bag Paul McCartney live in concert. The concert seats, the crappy t-shirts, stadium refreshments-->$900. You know that musicians make a lot more off concerts than records, right? And poor rag Paul's still crying over how file sharing has ripped him off. Which is why you'd have to pay me, handsomely, to bother ripping any of that bloke's crap. And yeah, he's way over 64 now.

Re:Sell services, not copies

[pandrijeczko]

Fundamentally it's based on artificial scarcity of something that can be endlessly copied for virtually no cost. You do not see a problem with this?

I cannot remember the last time I couldn't find an album I wanted on CD - if anything the record companies are doing a fantastic job at the moment re-releasing and remastering both popular and very obscure stuff from the 70s and 80s. So, no, I don't see any problems.

So let's see. Joe Startup Artist is supposed to try to negotiate with Big Music Corporation, which has dozens of new artists just like him lined up outside the door for the chance to throw themselves at the very contract he's trying to negotiate. Big Music Corporation has every reason to tell Joe Startup Artist to piss off if he doesn't like the abusive terms of the contract. Considering that a lawyer good enough to solve this problem would likely cost more than Joe Startup Artist makes in six months at Wal-Mart, how exactly do you suggest that he gain some leverage against Big Music Corporation?

I don't know and I don't care, to be honest - just like the musician doesn't care about my employment contract or how much I earn. For music, I just care about whether the end product is good quality and worth the money I paid for it. Just because you call yourself a musician doesn't mean you're either good enough or even entitled to make a living out of it - retrain, become a plumber...

Dude, if I were a musician, I'd be extremely pissed at you for saying that. You're saying that the only people who are good enough to make money from their music are those that manage to wrestle it from their predatory record label. Never mind the fact that that particular attribute cannot be used to judge music quality.

Hmmm, I think if you were a musician you'd be more pissed at someone pirating your music - at least when I buy a CD the musician *MIGHT* get some royalties, when someone else pirates the CD, he/she definitely gets nothing.

Bull fucking shit. You're asserting that without copyright protection everyone would just download music and therefore no music would ever be made. Bull, fucking, shit.

Roll your neck back in, please, and *READ* what I posted. I did not mention "copyright protection", I talked about *HONESTY*. I, and people like me, are *HONEST* enough to pay for our music, meaning that it gets released in the first place such that only then can dishonest people download it.

When you buy the CD, the vast majority of what you pay goes towards the record labels and lets them fund continued multi-thousand-dollar lawsuits against casual music sharers

Like I said, I don't give a shit. If a £10 CD entertains me over and over again over the space of 30-odd years, that's good value for money and job done as far as I'm concerned - they can do pretty much what they want to with that money from me, I can sit back in front of my nice expensive hi-fi with my nice shiny CD knowing that it won't be me they're taking to court.

as well as continued lobbying of governments for harsher copyright law and more invasive enforcement.

I'm a PC gamer also but I buy very few modern PC games because of the DRM protection on them - no, I don't pirate them either. I consider no product out there as something I *MUST* have, if it's price and conditions of usage don't suit me, I just don't buy it. It's that simple and that's sends a far stronger message to the producers of that stuff than Internet "Robin Hoods" who think they're doing the whole world a favour with their "crusade of piracy".

Kind of cuts away your moral high ground.

Not one bit, actually. It comes down to the simple fact that I don't lose my head over anything & don't get drawn in by hype and advertising. I *THINK* before I spend my money, I do my research and I only buy what I consider is good value for money - for that reason I enjoy my music (and everything else) a whole lot more and still have enough money left to enjoy pretty much what else I want to in life. If you think that's a moral high ground, that's your choice - me, I could care less, I'm too busy having fun.

Re:Sell services, not copies

[tehcyder]

You probably don't even need DRM. I know, you're thinking that people will just download the whole catalog in a month and then cancel their subscription, but that's really more trouble than it's worth. You have to go through all the trouble of downloading, storing, and backing up all that data. And then your computer crashes or a file gets corrupt, and you have to do it all over again. You quit again, but then a new song comes out that you want, so you'll have to resubscribe.

And of course no-one would dream of downloading the lot, putting it on a torrent, and providing a weekly update. Oh no. As soon as the nasty record companies got rid of DRM and gave everyone a chance to pay for music again, all other copying and file-sharing would stop at once.

Re:Sell services, not copies

[nine-times]

And of course no-one would dream of downloading the lot, putting it on a torrent, and providing a weekly update.

Yeah, because all that music isn't already available to pirates. Putting DRM on songs really keep pirates in check.

Here's the deal: First, you make a good service for a good price. A lot of piracy goes away right there. A lot of people will be willing to pay some money for the convenience of not hunting down torrents-- iTunes has proven that.

With fewer pirates out there, the risk of distributing will go up, so fewer people will be inclined to do it. It's a self-reenforcing cycle. Plus, if the service is good and convenient, them sympathy for pirates will go down. Finally, they could watermark the songs, making it possible to track the source of any leaks to bittorrent, increasing the risk even further.

Re:Sell services, not copies

[nine-times]

I'm not sure you're actually responding to my post, but I'll respond anyway.

Personally, I don't see any problem with the existing music business model... Firstly, I don't consider musician royalties to be any of my business as a music fan... Secondly, as a music fan, I only care about the end product..

So you don't see a problem with the music business model because you (a) don't care; and (b) don't think it's any of your business. That makes sense. I wouldn't really see a problem with someone stealing your car because I don't care and it's none of my business.

If you make a decision to try to make a living from your music then as far as I'm concerned it's a case of getting a good lawyer & negotiating your record company contract. After that, if you still feel you're being screwed by the record companies, then maybe you're not good enough to be making money from your music - so go train to do something else.

Yes, because 18 year old musicians are all really savvy businessmen. And that's the point, right? I mean, if they're not, then why the hell would I listen to their music?

my buying a music CD has not helped maintain poverty in the Third World or damaged too many trees

No, I doubt it does anything like that directly, but it is a big economic waste. Think of all the energy and materials that go into making a CD. Now think about all the energy that goes into shipping them around the world. Now think about all the resources that go into building record stores. All that stuff can be replaced with a few datacenters and the computer that's already sitting on your desk. Much more efficient.

Thirdly, people that justify music piracy are too stupid to realise that the music is there to be had in the first place because enough honest people like me go out and buy it the first place.

I... don't think that's quite true. It's at least an oversimplification. But whatever.

Capitalism works when market forces determine the price of something,

"Market forces" are at work in free markets. The music industry is not a free market. Copyright is an artificial monopoly, meaning no one else can compete.

not when the market creates a reason to keep the price of music high because the honest people have to constantly subsidise the dishonest people by what they pay.

They don't need a reason to keep the prices high. It's not like they keep albums at $10 on iTunes because that's the magic number that allows them to cover their costs. You aren't subsidizing pirates. If everyone stopped pirating, prices would not go down.

Re:Sell services, not copies

[Andorin]

So essentially you don't care about any issues that don't affect you directly, and you're willing to buy the recording industry's propaganda as long as you continue to get your fix of music. You don't think there's anything wrong with copyright law, you don't think there's anything wrong with funding abusive and greedy record labels, and you somehow believe that you're protected from an infringement lawsuit simply because you don't pirate. You either cannot or refuse to see the basic problem with restricting the transfer of information from one computer to another via copyright law. In fact, you did a brilliant job of completely missing my point about artificial scarcity of information. You have faith in the magical forces of free market capitalism to fix the problems inherent in the entertainment industries, when the same industries will blame any lack of sales due to boycotts or people choosing to buy something else on piracy, and receive what amounts to a taxpayer bailout from governmental enforcement of their "intellectual property rights." And yet you will get onto your high horse and talk about people being honest, as though we are obligated to protect an out-of-date business model against technological progress, when it is against the public interest to do so. Have you even considered the fact that it's completely inappropriate for the music you mention, from the 70s and 80s (between 20 and 40 years old) to still be under copyright? Do you refuse to see how ridiculous the copyright circus has gotten under management of the media corporations, so that you might continue to be their customer and look down on anyone who decides that those corporations are no longer fit to control the world's media?

You're a perfect example of how apathy, ignorance, and knee-jerk reactions to corporate BS are killing our society.

Re:"Former" Manager

[moronikos]

Uh, they broke up?

Nope, they weren't run by the russian mob

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, they weren't run by the russian mob. Or at least in no more way than the USA Mob ran entertainment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Sinatra).

Odd you bring up RIAA accounting because AllOfMP3 had the monies owed to the artists available, but RIAA refused to take it.

Compare the rates paid to the 3c/song compulsory licensing that radio (which you can tape from for everyone in the US). The money was the same.

syd

[jDeepbeep]

Jenner and his business partner King departed from Floyd when Syd was being edged out of the band. From what I've read it doesn't seem he was booted. He moved on to manage other quite successful English bands so it seems he shouldn't be written off too casually.

Re:Speaking of Prohibition

[Dishevel]

By the way, which one's Pink?

This one is pink.

Re:Speaking of Prohibition

[inKubus]

Yeah, it's Time to put a stop to all this Us and Them. These repeated lawsuits just sound like Echoes to me. It's A Great Day for Freedom.

Re:It's absurd - cut and past oddity

[Anonymous Coward]

"They are comparable to prohibition in the US in the 1920s."
How? A ban on liquor is equated to a making music copying illegal?

Both are utterly futile, and unenforceable. People will always seek to get pissed (or stoned, etc.), and people will always copy music, if the technology allows. And the tech most definitely does nowadays.

hey! look what you get when you cut and paste from TFA. A little rider on the bottom...

NoScript deals with a lot of annoyances on the web like that. And stops 3rd party marketing companies snooping on what you are doing, just so they can make their ads (for crap you probably don't need) more persuasive.

From a quick look at things, it looks like the tracking and rider thing is done by intellitext. I think they are the web spammers that make basically what are fake links in articles. Anyway, blocking everything from tynt.com in your adblocker will probably also nail that crap.

You do use an adblocker, don't you?

Re:It's absurd - cut and past oddity

[jedidiah]

> ""It's absurd to expect ordinary members of the public to think "

Things that occur strictly in my home with my own property that's been legally purchased is the business of no one else.

The government has no business butting their noses in. Some corporation certainly has no standing in this regard.

The other side of this is the gross disrespect for the liberties and property rights of individual citizens.

Lost fidelity is acceptable

[mangu]

It used to be when you made a copy you lost fidelity

Straw man argument, easily debunked by mp3. When you record from FM radio the fidelity loss is comparable to that of ripping a CD to mp3. It would take several generations of tape-to-tape copy to degrade fidelity to the point it became unacceptable to the normal ear.

Re:Lost fidelity is acceptable

[Thing 1]

It would take several generations of tape-to-tape copy to degrade fidelity to the point it became unacceptable to the normal ear.

Completely agree. When I was a kid, I had the worst setup possible: a mono AM/FM radio with no line out, and a tape recorder (the flat kind, with the buttons on the front, like 9" x 4" x 2"). I used to start Dr. Demento just before I went to bed, telling everyone "be quiet in this room!", and taping "over the air". I would listen to it until the tape wore out. I didn't care about the sound quality; I just loved "Shaving Cream", "Dead Puppies", "Little Nash Rambler", much by Tom Lehrer, "Pencil Neck Geek", and many more. Too bad the tapes are all gone now.

Re:Lost fidelity is acceptable

[The Wild Norseman]

Completely agree. When I was a kid, I had the worst setup possible: a mono AM/FM radio with no line out, and a tape recorder (the flat kind, with the buttons on the front, like 9" x 4" x 2"). I used to start Dr. Demento just before I went to bed, telling everyone "be quiet in this room!", and taping "over the air". I would listen to it until the tape wore out. I didn't care about the sound quality; I just loved "Shaving Cream", "Dead Puppies", "Little Nash Rambler", much by Tom Lehrer, "Pencil Neck Geek", and many more. Too bad the tapes are all gone now.

Ha! I did the exact same thing! Complete with buttons on the front tape cassette recorder and cheapo hand held mike that I held up to the speaker grille, though I was in my bedroom at night so I didn't have to tell anyone to be quiet -- Dr. D came on during Sunday nights.

The cool thing is, I still own half a dozen tape cassettes that I made when I was a kid and do you know what? When I was older, I *bought* Dr. Demento CD's and several CD's of Tom Lehrer's music even though I could have easily torrented them.

/anecdote

You forgot the link...

[Xebikr]

Here you go.

Re:Speaking of Prohibition

[DrBoumBoum]

I wish you were here

Re:Speaking of Prohibition

[tunapez]

It's A Great Day for Freedom...

for several species of small furry animals gathered together in a cave and grooving with a pict, perhaps.

Re:Interesting point of view

[sammyF70]

... which is what lawyers live off. Laws have a tendency to be overcomplicated and ambiguous which really means a layman often has difficulties grasping the details. That's where lawyers and courts step in, in order to use or abuse the ambiguosities.

Re:Speaking of Prohibition

[davester666]

Just call out "Hey Floyd". Pink will be the other one.

Re:Speaking of Prohibition

[vyruss000]

Yes, finally, Let There Be More Light shed into the shady practices of the RIAA, etc. We should uncover their Saucerful of Secrets. They can no longer act as a Scarecrow against filesharing. We must be Fearless and not let our vision of the future be Obscured By Clouds.

Also, Brain Damage Dogs Summer '68 !!11

Re:Speaking of Prohibition

[L4t3r4lu5]

It's A Great Day for Freedom.

Yes, it is, but we all need to do our part. After all, would you exchange a walk on part in the war for the lead role in a cage?

Re:Speaking of Prohibition

[zippthorne]

Steve Buscemi, IIRC. Which I probably do not.

Re:Not like they get payed much from recording sal

[tehcyder]

Beyond that, consumer rights should be protected, and that does include the right to fair use of a purchased product.

And by "fair use" I assume you mean "the right to copy it endlessly and distribute it for nothing around the world"?

Re:listen first ... buy later...

[tehcyder]

I don't want to have to go to a gig every time I fancy listening to some music. Call me odd, but if I'm in a car or on a plane, or relaxing at home, I don't expect to have to hire a bunch of different musicians to accompany me.

Re:Speaking of Prohibition

[vgerdj]

I'm just one lost soul swimming in a beer glass, day after day

Re:Not like they get payed much from recording sal

[Irick]

Never assume, etc. No, i mean fair use. I mean, i just said i don't support going against an artist's wishes when dealing with this issue. I thought my position was rather clear.