Music Swapping Poll

[enat66]

Music Swapping Poll:

[Baser-X]

I don't agree with any of the poll options, so I'll just add my own 2 cents....

Downloading music is wrong, to a certain degree. Yes, yes, yes, it violates copyright laws, but when consumers are being raped on the cost of cds, what is to be expected? Isn't there a law against price gouging too? Indeed there is.

The big 6 labels CHOSE not to embrace technology and refused to offer their media online at a resonable price. And 5 years later, look at the results. Now they are finally getting around to it, but the damage is done, people have discovered the power of FREE, not to mention the major labels have alienated many would be subscribers.

As for the "amnesty" offered.... ummm whatever. Basically a bunch of chumps are going to go sign this and supposedly destroy all illegal content. What they fail to realize is that it gets them out of the RIAA's sights, but ultimately makes them targets for other orginazations who have made no such promise not to sue.

And then, let's get on to the lawsuits themselves... UP TO $1,500 PER SONG. As if they would lose anyhting even remotely close to this figure even if a song is shared by one person 1,500 times. It's all greed. And in the end, will they stop filesharing? NO. Will they force P2P and other filesharing technologies to advance at a more rapid pace? YES. Will they alienate people who download AS WELL AS BUY CDs? YES. Believe it or not, a lot of people who download music also buy music. I have, do and will, just not from the major labels. I currently have a subscription with emusic.com. $10 a month for unlimited (to a certain extent) downloads. Over 1,500 labels are included on this site, every last one is an independent label (I'm sure some of the "independent labels" are actually owned by the big 6... ). Do you think these companies are losing money? NO. Are they making money? INDEED. Why are they making money? Because some of the music I've snagged LEGALLY from emusic.com I ended up at invisiblerecords.com to buy the actual CD. I doubt I am alone in this.

[psychocandy]

spot on baser

[lufbra]

Spotted on another forum...

by Dominic Mohan from the Sun Online

Burn b@by burn

ONCE upon a time, there was a little girl called Brianna LaHara who downloaded nursery rhymes like If You’re Happy And You Know It from the Internet.

Then, one day, the big, bad, record industry huffed, puffed and decided to sue the 12-year-old and 260 other computer users for stealing.

Poor little Brianna screamed and screamed when the nasty letter arrived at her home in New York and she was worried she wouldn’t live happily ever after.

Her plight is proof that the music business is in crisis.

Bullyboy labels are panicking and The Recording Industry Association Of America’s decision to take legal action against consumers like Brianna could be its swansong.

This week, a chairman of one of the world’s biggest record labels told me: “The music scene is vibrant and healthy and there is some exciting music around.

We’ve just got to figure out how to make people pay for it.”

Yet ten years ago, yes TEN years ago, David Bowie invited fans to download one of his songs for free from the Internet.

Some 350,000 duly did but record companies failed to grasp that this development could be catastrophic, and eventually kill them off.

Too busy lining their pockets, they failed to notice that a revolution was taking place in cyberspace.

The bag that had the cat in it is now empty and the stable door is wide open, the boat has been missed, the industry’s actions are too little and it is far too late.

An estimated 60million of us download music each day and it’s not difficult to see why.

CDs are outrageously priced at £14 but it costs pennies to burn a track from the Net.

If greedy labels had kept their prices low there would be less demand for cheap music.

We now know that blank CDs cost only a few pence — and that means we’ve been ripped off for years.

Universal, responsible for 30 per cent of US album sales, dropped a bombshell this week saying it is slashing prices to try to drive customers back into record shops.

But other methods companies have chosen to employ are simply antagonistic to the consumer.

An increasing number of CDs are now copy controlled, which means we can’t play them on our computers or stick them on our iPods.

If I buy a CD, I should be allowed to do what I like with it. I’ve invested in that record, it becomes my property.

If I want to spread jam on it, stick the thing down my trousers, use it as a Frisbee or share the music with someone else on the Internet, it’s my right — as it is to let someone live in my house, read my paper, drive my car or borrow my jacket.

Artists are divided. Bowie says: “The next factor to change things will be the capitulation of the recording industry itself.

“I honestly believe the day of the corporate record company is nearly over. I wouldn’t give it much more than three or four years.

“As broadband gets stronger on the Internet, music is going to be thought of in an entirely different way.”

Radiohead, Robbie Williams and Limp Bizkit are with him but Elton John, Paul McCartney and Britney — not short of a few quid themselves — are fighting piracy.

What they fail to grasp is that our whole perception of music is changing. It is now available to us on tap, like water or gas.

And taking out your frustration and shortcomings on a 12-year-old girl won’t change a thing. Trying to scare your own customers is a desperate measure.

One company who have tackled the issue head-on are Apple — and I’m not talking about the record company.

Labels may have buried their heads but the computer giant has launched iTunes, an online music store where you can legally download music for 66p a track.

This is surely the way forward for artists who will ultimately shun corporations in favour of selling music via their own websites.

This punk-like revolution can only benefit the spectacle of live music as bands become more reliant on concert performance and merchandising for revenue.

That means pop puppets who can’t sing or cut it on stage will wither. And, long-term, that can only be good for music.

So, if you’re happy and you know it and you really want to show it, click your mouse.

[enat66]

Interesting...but one thing I want to say.

Quote from that: "If I buy a CD, I should be allowed to do what I like with it. I’ve invested in that record, it becomes my property."

If I buy a box of cheerios and use technology to replicate it exactly and give it all to my friends so they don't have to spend money to eat cheerios. Is that my right? Would General Mills (the maker of Cheerios) be happy with that?

That is my two cents (now give me your two cents...I am poor)

[Baser-X]

Originally Posted by lufbra

That means pop puppets who can’t sing or cut it on stage will wither. And, long-term, that can only be good for music.

Once you've eliminated the no talent hacks, a CD might be worth $20 b/c the odds of getting a quality product would greatly increase.

[zipulrich]

Posted by enat66:

If I buy a box of cheerios and use technology to replicate it exactly and give it...

That's known as reverse engineering, a technology not in question re music sharing. There are plenty of 'store brand' Cheerio knockoffs, selling for far less. Where are the great Cheerio lawsuits? Where's the huge profit losses posted by General Mills as a direct result of.....naw, no comparison.

[lufbra]

Hmmmmm, maybe we can start our very own ripoff band, Mishy can be Slash (lead guitar), AnnMarie can be Joan Jett (lead singer), Dodge can be Animal (the drummer in the Muppet Show), Tweaker can be Rick Wakeman (keyboards), WD40 (harmonica), Lufbra (lead kazoo), and Red Satin, GretaP, Mawil can be the Go Go dancers!

[psychocandy]

im sure i remember listening to radio one on a sunday with my finger on the record button to tape songs

[Baser-X]

Originally Posted by enat66

Interesting...but one thing I want to say.

Quote from that: "If I buy a CD, I should be allowed to do what I like with it. I’ve invested in that record, it becomes my property."

If I buy a box of cheerios and use technology to replicate it exactly and give it all to my friends so they don't have to spend money to eat cheerios. Is that my right? Would General Mills (the maker of Cheerios) be happy with that?

That is my two cents (now give me your two cents...I am poor)

If you know what you're doing and have the ability to replicate cheerios to distribute to your friends free of charge, then you obviously have the money and the know how to alter them just enough to manufacture a legal alternative to cheerios which you can give away to anyone you want. Provided of course you never make mention of the fact that you basically stole and altered cheerios.

But more to the point, If I buy a CD, I DO have the right to do whatever I want with it for the most part. What you do with a CD is not so much the issue as what you do with the backup you make. For example, if you buy a CD put in your car stereo with with your ultra bad ass system that can be heard everywhere in a 3 block radius and drive around playing the music for free for everyone, you haven't violated any copyright laws, even though you are playing the music for free without express rights from the record label to a large audience (you may however violate noise pollution laws... but that's another story). BUT if you make a backup and distribute over the internet, then we're right back at that proverbial line in the sand. At what point do you actually cross that line? Based on the lawsuits currently filed, you don't actually cross the line until you share 1,000 or more files. Of course that is subject to change at any time. But are you making a profit from it? Not really, you may profit by obtaining new material for free in exchange for providing material you paid for free to others. But in strictly monetary terms, no you don't profit. As a matter of fact, you ARE paying a monthly fee to be connected to the internet in most cases. On the other hand, if you buy a CD rip it, scan the cover, inlay and anything else included then proceed to mass produce copies to be sold on a street corner, you are making a profit and therefore have crossed the line. This, there is no question, is illegal.

What happens in cyberspace is still a subject of [heavy] debate, and at least in my mind comes back to the same question: Why can't the major labels accept this tool of mass marketing and work out a way for everyone to benefit? They literally have the world at their fingertips, not just North America, Europe and the rest of their current market, but anyone in the world who is online. This number grows each and every year as more and more people get access to the world wide web. And, let's just face facts... try as they might, the RIAA will never succeed with their current campaign. They can stop a few, force technology to evolve, maybe stop a few more, force technology to evolve, and so forth and so on. So basically, in order to fulfill their immediate need for the almighty dollar to line their pockets, they are passing on a long term pocket filling solution. An opportunity to reach more people than they ever did. Do these idiots actually think for even a second that piracy was not an issue before the internet? I used to copy tapes and CDs all the time. Granted the scale was more limited, but when I was in school I couldn't afford to buy a bunch of CDs, so a bunch of us would each buy 1 CD or tape and then copy and distribute between us. I'm sure we weren't the only ones, and as stated by psychocandy, we all spent many a Sunday with a fingers on the record button...

Anyway.....

[enat66]

What do you guys think of those online pay per song services? I know they will never kick off unless the RIAA scares everybody to stop using p2p or the p2p is stopped.

[zipulrich]

Actually, Apple's is doing quite well. The company is crowing about 'selling' 2 million downloads and counting.

[maxximilian]

The RIAA question isn't really about whether downloading music is stealing or not.....it is....

However, the real question in my mind is how in the hell did a private organization get pseudo-government authority via federal subpoenas? With federal subpoenas, evidence is not required to obtain the document, but rather simply an accusation, it would appear. Don't seem right to me. Once you have the document, then you get to go fishing and peeking.....

I know....its the law. But.....there are also privacy laws. And laws regarding due process. It's easier to prosecute a P2P user than it is a drug dealer. You couldn't just walk into somebody's house and say, "Excuse me...mind if I poke around here and see if I find any drugs?" But that is what the RIAA is doing with regards to ISPs and downloads.

Now.....as some of you know, I work with graphic arts and such. A good bit of what I have done is now up on the net on my sites and elswhwere. I am the copyright holder of said pieces of "property". The way I see it...I would be well within my rights to obtain a subpoena to search the personal computers of all the executives of the RIAA. Right? I mean.....my stuff is easily gotten via websites and P2P, sooooooooo....there is a possibility that the RIAA is illegally possessing my stuff without purchase or permission.