One thing you do is think about it, to try to come up with some new solution.
You try to raise people's awareness on copyright and freedom issues, you make the law more important than anyone's business (right now, Disney, RIAA, MPAA have the copyright laws changed every time they want to keep Mickey or their music or whatever a little longer), and work to get copyright law changed to a more reasonable form.
You don't allow the industry that fueled economic growth all through the 90's (computers) get its progress nailed to the ground by one one-tenth the size, and much more irresponsible (entertainment).
You don't give police powers to anyone to invade any citizen's privacy unless they're the police.
You let the companies go after real pirates (I'll just grab this CD and make 10,000 copies myself and sell them on the street. [I once walked down a street in the computer store section of Beijing in early Sept. '95, and had a Chinese man step up to me every hundred feet to offer me a brand-spanking new disk of, you guessed it, Windows 95. It hadn't been available in the States yet when I left, but those guys must have been burning those things at midnight of Aug. 25]).
If you're the company, you offer a fair product. Are they locked in to paying those artists so much they can't afford to charge less? (Not - everyone knows some artists get a fortune, but lots are hocked up to their professional eyeballs upon signing a contract, and the RIAA has been convicted of price-fixing.) If people would just stop to think about it, p2p downloading is actually kind of a pain in the ass. It's slow, fails frequently, the networks are crowded, there's not always good selection (I still liked Napster best), song quality is very uneven, and it's tedious doing the searching. There's a second reason besides price that it's often young people doing it. A reasonably-heeled adult has a better payoff to their time than doing a LOT of downloading.
A song's worth maybe a dollar, a bit less, if you get to keep it. Think about it. How many songs on a CD, and what's the price? How many songs at a concert, and what's the price (but you get to SEE your performer). What's Apple charging for their songs? The RIAA could have done that a long time ago, and probably made it fly even while Napster was alive if they'd gotten their technological heads out of the sand. Reliable, fast downloads, good quality, play it where you liked, big songlists, descriptions and Amazon-style samples, and yes, yes, yes, marketing! They would have been loved. IF they'd charged.89 and sold by the song. Isn't Apple still just selling to Mac owners? There's a BIG market left out there.
And if they want to sell to it, it'd be nice if they left the ideas of monkeying with my computer and my free speech alone.
Sure, the individual labels, not the RIAA, market their individual products, but:
RIAA is a trade group that exists to protect and promote the interests of their member labels...
What else is that but marketing? Lots of industries have a trade group to market their industry, while of course the companies market their own products.
Give ME a fucking break. Most people think getting slapped with a law-suit ruins their life for at least a little while.
What IT do YOU wish to protect, because that sounds like a motivation for your position. Who are you defending with this statement? The RIAA, who have been convicted of price-fixing (definitely against the law), who are famous for gouging their artists, who are buying our congresspeople and suing 12-year olds, and yes, college geeks?
The core of your comment is dead-wrong on two, albeit to some eyes, subtle, counts. The RIAA are NOT the creators of this music, they are the marketers. Since when do you defend salesmen? Second, no one, not even those admired artists, creates in a vacuum. They live in the same social milieu, the same web of relationships, the same ocean of memes of all sorts, as every other human member of our social species. Your statement is not really wrong, but it is entirely incomplete, and this issue is not black and white. Even property, under the law, even in America, is not sacrosanct, though it may seem sometimes like it is. Government and society have the legal power to override the rights of property owners for a variety of reasons. Copyright was never meant to be even that strong. It was supposed to promote an incentive to create, not stifle it, and now there is an equally important reason - while you're busy defending the 'rights' of any copyright owner to do anything he or she wants in order to 'protect' that "copy"right, what happens to civil liberties, freedoms, privacies, ability to resist coercion in a number of open and subtle ways, adherence to ideals of honest day's work for honest dollar (instead of the older definition of piracy, or highway robbery), and on and on? I happen to think quite a few of those are more important than absolute copy"right", especially for a bunch of parasites like the RIAA.
If there're are any moderators left out there, MOD PARENT UP!
Thanks for writing.
It's about time someone noted the real issue - how this potentially can and is changing our society and legal system. It's never been about the goddam music. It's about a conflict between those with the morals of ancient highwaymen and (high seas) pirates vs. those who would like a free and creative society. Right on.
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One thing you do is think about it, to try to come up with some new solution.
.89 and sold by the song. Isn't Apple still just selling to Mac owners? There's a BIG market left out there.
You try to raise people's awareness on copyright and freedom issues, you make the law more important than anyone's business (right now, Disney, RIAA, MPAA have the copyright laws changed every time they want to keep Mickey or their music or whatever a little longer), and work to get copyright law changed to a more reasonable form.
You don't allow the industry that fueled economic growth all through the 90's (computers) get its progress nailed to the ground by one one-tenth the size, and much more irresponsible (entertainment).
You don't give police powers to anyone to invade any citizen's privacy unless they're the police.
You let the companies go after real pirates (I'll just grab this CD and make 10,000 copies myself and sell them on the street. [I once walked down a street in the computer store section of Beijing in early Sept. '95, and had a Chinese man step up to me every hundred feet to offer me a brand-spanking new disk of, you guessed it, Windows 95. It hadn't been available in the States yet when I left, but those guys must have been burning those things at midnight of Aug. 25]).
If you're the company, you offer a fair product. Are they locked in to paying those artists so much they can't afford to charge less? (Not - everyone knows some artists get a fortune, but lots are hocked up to their professional eyeballs upon signing a contract, and the RIAA has been convicted of price-fixing.) If people would just stop to think about it, p2p downloading is actually kind of a pain in the ass. It's slow, fails frequently, the networks are crowded, there's not always good selection (I still liked Napster best), song quality is very uneven, and it's tedious doing the searching. There's a second reason besides price that it's often young people doing it. A reasonably-heeled adult has a better payoff to their time than doing a LOT of downloading.
A song's worth maybe a dollar, a bit less, if you get to keep it. Think about it. How many songs on a CD, and what's the price? How many songs at a concert, and what's the price (but you get to SEE your performer). What's Apple charging for their songs? The RIAA could have done that a long time ago, and probably made it fly even while Napster was alive if they'd gotten their technological heads out of the sand. Reliable, fast downloads, good quality, play it where you liked, big songlists, descriptions and Amazon-style samples, and yes, yes, yes, marketing! They would have been loved. IF they'd charged
And if they want to sell to it, it'd be nice if they left the ideas of monkeying with my computer and my free speech alone.
Sure, the individual labels, not the RIAA, market their individual products, but:
- RIAA is a trade group that exists to protect and promote the interests of their member labels...
What else is that but marketing? Lots of industries have a trade group to market their industry, while of course the companies market their own products.Your distinction escapes me, sorry.
Give ME a fucking break. Most people think getting slapped with a law-suit ruins their life for at least a little while.
What IT do YOU wish to protect, because that sounds like a motivation for your position. Who are you defending with this statement? The RIAA, who have been convicted of price-fixing (definitely against the law), who are famous for gouging their artists, who are buying our congresspeople and suing 12-year olds, and yes, college geeks?
The core of your comment is dead-wrong on two, albeit to some eyes, subtle, counts. The RIAA are NOT the creators of this music, they are the marketers. Since when do you defend salesmen? Second, no one, not even those admired artists, creates in a vacuum. They live in the same social milieu, the same web of relationships, the same ocean of memes of all sorts, as every other human member of our social species. Your statement is not really wrong, but it is entirely incomplete, and this issue is not black and white. Even property, under the law, even in America, is not sacrosanct, though it may seem sometimes like it is. Government and society have the legal power to override the rights of property owners for a variety of reasons. Copyright was never meant to be even that strong. It was supposed to promote an incentive to create, not stifle it, and now there is an equally important reason - while you're busy defending the 'rights' of any copyright owner to do anything he or she wants in order to 'protect' that "copy"right, what happens to civil liberties, freedoms, privacies, ability to resist coercion in a number of open and subtle ways, adherence to ideals of honest day's work for honest dollar (instead of the older definition of piracy, or highway robbery), and on and on? I happen to think quite a few of those are more important than absolute copy"right", especially for a bunch of parasites like the RIAA.
If there're are any moderators left out there, MOD PARENT UP!
Thanks for writing.
It's about time someone noted the real issue - how this potentially can and is changing our society and legal system. It's never been about the goddam music. It's about a conflict between those with the morals of ancient highwaymen and (high seas) pirates vs. those who would like a free and creative society. Right on.