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Are any of you concerned about the recent intiative of the music industry to try and stop free music downloads? They have recieved records from internet service providers and are hunting people down. A 12 year girl got sued and her parents had to pay $1000 per song, or something to that effect, and that is only one of the first people that will be sued by the record industry. Are you going to continue downloading or or are you going to stop.

I never really did anyways.. cause more then half the stuff i want is NEVER there for me to download or it goes to damn slow.. or something.. so it is a waste of my time...

so unless i REALLY REALLY needed something and i new they had it... i am...
but doubt i will

this wont help the record companies, if anything it will turn people off even more to buying music that isnt wroth paying for. if they want people to pay for music, they should start putting out better music. this will only hurt them.

lol they made her pay 2 dollars a song, which came out to 2,000 dollars. My friends friend got sued for 9 billion, but the judge told the RIAA that they were retarded and lowered it to 15,000. which is still a large amount.

I dont care either way really, Im not buying the music of these manufactured pop stars with no talent. I think the only creative minds that are still around are the people who were here before britney and all them came on the scene. Linkin Park and Evanescense are all that remain of the new school talent.

I buy CDs cos I like having a nice original collection. I still download the odd song now and again if its something I need to learn but thats it.

hahaha 9 BILLION?? YOU WERE KIDDING RIGHT!? HAHAH smart judge

Unless you are a heavy abuser..........you have nothing to worry about. Every person they have targeted so far has downloaded 1000+ songs..........they're going for the habitual downloaders, the big fish if you will. In the last year I've probably downloaded 15 songs.......if that. When people are downloading 1000+ songs, they are clearly music fiends and would purchase the music if no free downloads were available on the internet. I believe they should be sued. Like I said........unless you are downloading hundreds of songs and basically spending your life with a set of headphones on, you shouldn't have anything to worry about.

same here evil dead, i have like 13 songs on my computer.

i had over 1400, but i deleted them all to free space up on my harddrive.

i have all of my songs donwloaded and burned by other poepl so i will never get in troubel and i never have to do ne work using people i luv it

To be honest........I can't think of 1000 songs ever made that I like.....I can think of hundreds of songs from my favorite bands like Nirvana, Sex Pistols, AC/DC, etc. and a few songs here and there from other bands.....but I don't think that comes anywhere near one thousand.

I verily couldn't write the words I am thinking to describe my contempt for record companies right now. If I did, the mods would probably eject me from the board, and the church would excommunicate me. However I can say this for sure: record companies are only interested in one thing. one thing only MONEY CASH DINERO LOOT POUNDS LIRR SHEKLES (sp?) They're pissed off cuz their fat bloated gelatinous underworked overpaid arrogant hideous asses are losing money from record sales. Then they have the nerve to come out and say that they are the victims here because they have been cheated out of a few million dollars. Please you low class high brow sleight handed cultural wasteland! You make hundreds of millions of dollars in a week! I just saw a commercial that incessed me to no end. It was like 45 seconds of workers in the music and movie industry telling the camera what their job was with their name in little print on the screen. The end of all the clips was some narrator saying "when you pirate music you hurt the little guys" or something along those lines.... Oh please!

It's funny though. The situation the record companies are in they totally brought upon themselves with the digital revolution. I was told that when CD's first came out, the industry was pushing them like crazy. They didn't even give people a choice in the matter. DIGITAL IS THE WAY OF THE FUTURE!!(I wouldn't know I was but a wee spermling). They were right, and I got nothing against digital. I'm so for it, and here's why: CD's are mere pennies to make. especially if you buy them in bulk and pretty cheap to write (hell anyone can aquire the tech to write CD's now adays), yet how much did you pay for the new Missy CD? Ohhhhhhhh now do you get my drift? How much did you pay for that CD, compared to how much is it to manufacture a CD complete with jewel case and what not? Not to mention, the more you CD's manufactured the cheaper it is for the maker. I couldn't give exact numbers but I can tell you who got the short end of that stick. More on the next page...

Ok my point is the industry screwed itself by switching to digital because it's so easy to manufacture and make, that ANYONE can do it. And they did. Instead of buying CD's cats would copy from other people. Well that was cool, because someone, somewhere had to buy at least one cd for people to copy. Then the internet came along, sure the internet costs $$ but the information you get off it doesn't. So what happens now? You don't even have to buy CD's. So where does this leave the record companies, well hmmm where do they make all their profit? Off records. "Well record sales are down. This is a disturbing trend". Why are they down? "Piracy". Well we have control over the artists, TV, radio, magazines and what not, but this internet this free (key word) exchange of info, is posing a threat to our monopoly. Well the next obvious step is to control the internet. That mei amico is where we are right now. The industry wants to control the internet because it's the leak in their airtight seal to get any and every cent thats invested into anything musical. THEY WANT TO LIMIT OUR OPTIONS SO THAT WE HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO GIVE THEM OUR MONEY . They don't give a damn about art, what art is, or what art was, the only question they have is: Is art marketable? What about his cousin? But hey that's show biz!

#1. It IS stealing................no need to try to reason, stealing is wrong no matter who it's from. General Motors is a huge company but I don't go around stealing cars simply because GM has alot of money and I don't.

" record companies are only interested in one thing. one thing only MONEY CASH DINERO LOOT POUNDS LIRR SHEKLES (sp?) They're pissed off cuz their fat bloated gelatinous underworked overpaid arrogant hideous asses are losing money from record sales. Then they have the nerve to come out and say that they are the victims here because they have been cheated out of a few million dollars."

You said it...."record companies"......the purpose of company is to make money. The people who work for that company be it band, public relations, accountant, or CEO.........they all come into work every day and put their hours in. Why? To make money to support themselves and their families. Where does this money come from to pay these employees? It comes from the profit generated by the product they manufacture (just like every other company in the world), which in this case is recorded music. A loss in profit does directly affect the company. It affect employess pay (especially those with bonus incentives), it lessens the amount of money available for production of sed product, and it lessens the amount of money available to hire new employees (new bands) to produce their product....it also lessens the amount of money available to promote their product.

#2. "It was like 45 seconds of workers in the music and movie industry telling the camera what their job was with their name in little print on the screen. The end of all the clips was some narrator saying "when you pirate music you hurt the little guys" or something along those lines.... Oh please!"

When one person does it........you are correct, it does not affect the little guys. Sadly, one person is not doing this. Millions of people are doing this which is hurting the production companies.........and even crippling the smaller companies that aren't music industry giants like WB or Interscope.

Have you ever watched an indie film or bought an underground album? These are not produced by big companies. What if they produced their movie/album but nobody bought it? Everybody downloaded it for free. These small companies go out of business.......because they are earning no profit. When an indie record label goes out of business........it has to get rid of it's employees. These are all the management employees, aswell as the producers they use..........hell, even the roadies for the bands they have signed. Those are the little people who get hurt by this.

What if this whole scenerio had happened 15 years ago? There would have been no Epitaph records........no Death Row records......no Lookout records........no Suburban Noize records....no Sub Pop records........as these all started as very tiny labels who depended on every single album sale to stay alive. Now think of the albums these labels have produced and which bands they've jump started the careers of................you would have probably heard of these groups later on because they are talented but then again, if these labels hadn't given them their first shot they may have never gotten a shot. Groups like Rancid and Offspring (Epitaph records), Screeching Weasel and Green Day (Lookout Records), Snoop Doggy Dogg and Kurrupt (Death Row Records), Nirvana (Sup Pop Records), Kottonmouth Kings and The Corporate Avenger (Suburban Noize Records).

#3. "The situation the record companies are in they totally brought upon themselves with the digital revolution. I was told that when CD's first came out, the industry was pushing them like crazy. They didn't even give people a choice in the matter."

You have been sadly misinformed. Compact Discs came out in the mid eighties......around '85. It was the new hi-tech thing.......and because so not only were the CDs expensive but we're talking about $800 for the most basic of a CD player. They did not begin to gain in popularity untill ther early nineties.......when the cost began to drop. They were still running number 2 to cassette tapes untill the mid-late nineties. The CD revolution didn't really happen untill about '96 when CD sales began to outnumber cassette tape sales. That was a full decade after the CD had been produced.

Maybe your friend was thinking of DVD players.........that is the only format that has ever been invented to just overtake the previous format in a few years. The BetaMax held it's ground longer against VHS than VHS held against DVDs.

#4. The music industry does not wish to control the internet. They only wish to control their property, which is the product they spend their money to manufacture, which is the music they produce. This is why all movies and albums are copyrighted.......hey, guess what.......so are all books. How about that. Do you think it would be okay for somebody to take the next John Grisham novel and photo copy it and give it to people for free so they wouldn't buy his book? Call it sharing if you will but you aren't loaning your copy to somebody......you are creating another copy when you download a song........which would be the same as photo copying John Grisham's new novel. Ofcourse it would be stealing money right out of his pocket wouldn't it. He took the time out of his life to write a story...........his publisher took the time and money to press, publish, and promote the book............then everybody should get it for free? um....no.

#5. By reading your two replies I've come to a conclusion. You do not see the big picture. You think of musicians as big rock stars. You think of Record Companies as being one of the big 4 record companies......ofcourse all of these guys are filthy rich so you don't feel bad about stealing from them.

Let me let you in a little secret. For every big rock star there is with an album.........there are 500 small musicians to are living dirt poor with all of their bandmates in a roach infested apartment while trying to get a big record deal. They depend on every single dollar they can get from selling one of their cds just so they can buy food and pay their rent.

For every big corporate music recording company there is (basically 4 + their subsidiaries) there are literally HUNDREDS of small indie record labels who literally depend on the money from every cd sold just to stay in business allowing their employees to keep their jobs which feeds their families. If you download their music and don't buy the cds.......the company is no longer in business and cannot make more music.....and cannot earn money to live.

You need to stop thinking of the top 10% of the music industry which is filthy rich. Look at the big picture. I'm sure you have local bands where you live, I know I do here. Do they look filthy rich when you go to your local bar to see them play? I think not........they all have regular jobs because they can't make enough money to live on by playing music alone. Now you want people to not even buy their cds.......you think people should get their music for free?

music sharing programs like kazzaa help these small up and coming musicians because it gets their name to the public.

When I was young I copied music off the raido and made tapes
Then I was able to buy albums and I made mix tapes for all my friends, even for girlfriends, soft romantic music yaknow...
So how is now different? Technology? Morals? Values?

I download music to make mix CD's now and I will not stop
To get me off the radar I turned off my file sharing option

I disagree............the public does not need to know their names, only their local communties and record label scouts need to know their names. It does a musician no good at all for the public to know who they are if the public refuses to buy their albums because they are downloading them for free. Not to mention that you d/l songs off Kazaa because you are wanting a song........you have to type in what you are looking for. If you do not know who the band is, how would you know one of their songs to look for it? Even then, as I said........how would that be doing the band any good if you are stealing their music for free and not purchasing their product. Sure you'd know the name of the band who's music you're stealing is........but that wouldn't really do the band any good.

Bands don't get the money anyway, what are you talking about? The music companies get it all!...wake up!
It's not about the artists, it's about the big fat bureaucrats!

there are a few bands that i have found on kazzaa that have become my favorite, were it not for kazzaa i never would have found them and bought their cd's. Getting a bands name into the public is crucial, this is obvious and i dont understand how you can try to argue against it, obviously the more people who know about them, the more people will buy their cd's. simple really. and as far as the whole stealing from the record companies thing goes... yes, technically its stealing, but it in no way captures the spirit thought of when you think of stealing. The songs are being provided and delivered to you for a more reasonable price then the record companies sell the same items for. Not only this, but i feel the record companies are soley responsable for all this. Thye have no interest in making good quality music anymore, all they care about is money, STEALING money from thje public buy raising record prices for sub-standard music. as i said before, if they record companies want people to stop pirating music, then they should start producing music that is worth the publics hard earned money. if not, then they get what they have coming to them.

and diegocalo has a great point, the bands get like 50 cents for every cd sold, the rest goes to the company. the bands main profit comes from revenue made from live shows and such. thus kazzaa helping to get their name to the public will probably bring more people to their shows, thus helping them.

diegocala.................it was equally as wrong. It was stealing all the same...........but it was a tad bit different for these reasons.

1. Millions upon millions of people weren't doing this.

2. You could only record what was played on the radio........the new single.........you still had to buy the album to hear the rest of the songs. This is the very point of singles........they are teasers to make you want the rest of the album. Now you can d/l the entire album for free. The purpose of those songs on the radio were to make you want to buy the album........hell, I'm sure they would appreciate you helping them out by distributing their singles........this way other people would want to buy their album too. You were doing their "street team" work for them. Downloading actually does the opposite........you never have to buy the album because you can have the entire thing for free. Those radio singles were basically just the "sample chapters" to make you want to read the rest of the book. It wasn't giving you the entire book for free.

3. The music itself that was played on the radio was of a lesser quality. You couldn't record the pefectly crisp digital copy.

"there are a few bands that i have found on kazzaa that have become my favorite, were it not for kazzaa i never would have found them and bought their cd's. Getting a bands name into the public is crucial, this is obvious and i dont understand how you can try to argue against it, obviously the more people who know about them, the more people will"

once again.............you are thinking of corporate musicians. yes......they need their name out to sell albums. How does the local bar band in Seattle profit from you downloading their album? They don't. It does them no good for you to know who they are unless you plan to hop a flight to go see them the next night at the Big Whisky Bar and Grill. The only people who need to know who they are, are their local community (which creates a buzz to record companies) and the record company scout who comes to check them out and decides if they are deserving enough to be signed to a record contract. You downloading their cd they made in their garage and telling your friend how good it is helps them none.............you are just getting free music that you otherwise would have had to pay for or not have gotten it at all.

and how exactly do you find a band on Kazaa if you don't know a name? You have a search bar........you have to enter in what you are looking for.

"How does the local bar band in Seattle profit from you downloading their album? They don't. It does them no good for you to know who they are unless you plan to hop a flight to go see them the next night at the Big Whisky Bar and Grill. The only people who need to know who they are, are their local community (which creates a buzz to record companies) and the record company scout who comes to check them out and decides if they are deserving enough to be signed to a record contract. You downloading their cd they made in their garage and telling your friend how good it is helps them none.............you are just getting free music that you otherwise would have had to pay for or not have gotten it at all."



they can profit from this too, more people know who they are, more people will go see them live, thus helpin this local buzz for record companies. and most of the band i found were not "corporate" really, they were really small, unkown bands, that, yes, had record deals, but no one bought their music because they were unkown, enters kazzaa and illegal file sharing... they become known, their music is heard, people purchase their music because it is actually GOOD (hint hint record companies)

and for your question... you can find music on kazzaa, say you know the name of a song, but not the band, it iwll find the song and the band name. or sometimes you'll download a song but it wont be the right band....and the band you got by accident will blow you away. Plus sometimes the user providing the band you want, will have some other suggestions for bands who are similar to what you just downloaded.

" they become known, their music is heard, people purchase their music because it is actually GOOD (hint hint record companies)"

okay........say Record Companies purchase their music...........how are they going to sell the album that got them signed when everybody who knows who they are already has it downloaded (because you had to d/l it to hear it to become a fan and make them known) and everybody new who hears about the album can simply download it.

because i think most people (at least the ones i know) dont have problems paying for music if its good. plus, most of these small bands dotn have all the songs available on kazzaa, they are so small that only one or 2 songs will be available...thus playing a similar role to singles, making you want to hear the rest.

so basically .....by your defenition it's perfoming the same task for these small bands that radio and mtv do for larger bands..............while I can see where you are coming from on that, it still opens up every other musician to have their music stolen. Some small nobody band may only have one song on there.......but there are hundreds of Michael Jackson songs. Guess what........nobody ever has to buy a Michael Jackson record again.

alot of people don't have a problem buying music.........people have done so since the birth of the recording industry. The thing is.......when you already have the music, who is going to buy it? You've already got it on a cd in your car.......why would you buy another cd exactly like the one you d/l for free?

The music industry has had a working system since the 50s. It goes as follows:

- musician becomes popular in home area
- musician gets signed to a deal
- musician is promoted through radio and television
- musician becomes well known and makes money

This system assures that the cream will rise to the top. While d/ling music may help some guy's name get out............it also is stealing millions of dollars from countless other musicians and companies. And really.......what has this guy done to deserve his name being out? He isn't even good enough to draw attention in his own local area........why should all these other hundreds of thousands of people lose millions of dollars just so this guy who doesn't even deserve to be heard yet can get his name out before he is good enough for it to be out?

the only musicans getting hurt are the big name ones, like you said, micheal jackson will never have another big cd...but in reality...does he need it? no, he's set for life and he doesnt need any more money, nor do any of the other very big famous bands. i think helping a small, unkown, starving band get their name out so people can recognize their talent is much more important then expading the already very full pockets of these big famous musicans. and as far as teh companies go, they will get plent of money no matter what, and like i have said, if they start putting out better music, instead of the same old recycled redundant crap that they do put out....then more people would be motovated to buy music, but they dont, the music they put out is generally sub par in every area and is just there to serve to the temporary popularity of whatever flavor of the week trend is at the moment.

you are seriously wrong if you believe only "big musicians" have their albums available for d/l...................go on Kazaa and look up bands like Kottonmouth Kings..........you will find 5 albums available for download. These guys aren't big...........they are on an indie label called "Suburban Noize Records".......also check out Corporate Avenger........you will find all three of their albums available for download...........these guys are lucky if they are thousandaires............yet nobody has to buy an album of their ever again..................you seem to underestimate the power of the net. All it takes if for one of their fans to put their albums up and boom........the entire world has them for free....

A $2 CD should not be sold for $16.99
They rip us off, we return the favor

Yeah but the small bands are the ones that benefit from having their songs on kazaa because they get an undeground following.

And they collect the money for their shows! Which we go to because we were able to download a song for free, but paid the $15 to get in to the show!
Amen hedge!

It's the FRC's that are making all the money from this!

yep, as DC stated, the bands get very little money from their cd's sold. their main profit comes from the money made from live shows. so people who are motovated to download the songs for free may go to the show and give more money to the artist then they would have by purchasing the cd itself. thus, the artists are making more mony with kazzaa if you think about. because people who normally wouldnt bother spending money on their products are hearing them, and becomming fans, thus going to their shows, giving them moeny that wouldnt be given to them were it not for kazzaa. so the only peopl egetting hurt by kazzaa is the big record companies, and as DC said, they rip us off, we return of the favor, it sounds incredibly fair to me. i personally dont download much music, i prefer buying the cd's, just because i like having the actual and original product, i enjoy going to the store, purchasing the disc and so on, it feels more satisfying to me... but i can definately see where the downloaders are coming from.

If I like a band, I go see them live. Most of that money goes right to the pockets of hard working people such as roadies, musicians, and the like. Thats how a lot of jazz musicians do it because jazz doesn't sell as many records as the fast food on the radio nowadays. Now another little trick is to get x amount of CD's made complete with case and all that shit for a price, then when you go on tour sell them at your venue. Thats how a musician I met did it. He put his music on the net, then went on a tour of Europe. He brought about 10,000 CD's with him (where the hell did he keep them?!?) and couldn't meet the demand (in other words he sold out and people wanted more). Besides the money he gives back to whoever made the CD's for him, he and who ever worked for him gets most of the profits. Besides some shit I just don't feel bad at all for downloading. Such as musical scores. Besides the record company, the only one raking in money from that is the music publisher, and the composer. And they get a shite load of money just for doing the score.

evil dead are you from seattle???!

no I'm not.........just using it as an example. I'm from Ann Arbor (actually Ypsilanti) Michigan.

Most of the times the publishing rights are owned by the artist.......unless they are some pop band who didn't write their own song.

General Motors is a huge mega corporation that sells us $2,000 cars for $25,000......................so we should all go to our local Chevrolet dealership and steal all the cars we can? It's the same thing...........stealing from a big corporation in perfectly fine by you people's defenition. They have enough money.

first off Ann Arbor MI rocks. I know some musicians from there. Good peeps. Second of all, in terms of performance royalties, even though artists who write their own music are entitled to both writing and publishing royalties. However, they usually join a performance society as a writer and not a publisher. You must be both or you only get 50% of your royalty (the writing half). Unless you give that away or you never had it because you never wrote your diddies.

if we could get away with it like we can downloading music, i see no problem here

i download lots of music that i'd never buy. i steal from the record companies and sleep very well at night. the music on teh radio does not repersent my taste and i'm not going to buy a cd for 18$ just to see if its good. so if there was no way to get for free i'd have to steal my friends cd's. the record co. would like that because my friend would have to buy a new one.