Originally posted by Alpha Centauri
The amount of sheer uneducated ignorance in this thread is quite depressing."Only download from bands who aren't struggling."
No, just don't do it.
-AC
CD sales are still on the rise (Worldwide). This has a lot to do with P2P. People will download a track or two from an artist, then go out and buy a CD whereas otherwise they probably wouldn't have risked the $30 on an artist unless they know they'll like them.
Yeah, a lot of people never spend any monoey on CDs now - but a lot of people buy more CDs because they can get into more music. A lot of people might start off downloading albums, but then they'll become a fan of the artist and want to actually own the albums.
Also, P2P sharing gives the smaller artists a much bigger look-in than they'd otherwise get.
So it's not all bad. Yeah, that doesn't make it legal, but just because a record company is allowed to exploit the artists that doesn't make it morally correct either.
- SWS 🙂
Originally posted by Sir Whirlysplat
CD sales are still on the rise (Worldwide). This has a lot to do with P2P. People will download a track or two from an artist, then go out and buy a CD whereas otherwise they probably wouldn't have risked the $30 on an artist unless they know they'll like them.Yeah, a lot of people never spend any monoey on CDs now - but a lot of people buy more CDs because they can get into more music. A lot of people might start off downloading albums, but then they'll become a fan of the artist and want to actually own the albums.
Also, P2P sharing gives the smaller artists a much bigger look-in than they'd otherwise get.
So it's not all bad. Yeah, that doesn't make it legal, but just because a record company is allowed to exploit the artists that doesn't make it morally correct either.
- SWS 🙂
Yeah...so as I said:
"The amount of sheer uneducated ignorance in this thread is quite depressing.
'Only download from bands who aren't struggling.'
No, just don't do it."
People are saying "I only buy the CD if they deserve it." If the album is worth your time, it's worth your money.
I don't understand why people believe they have the right to listen to these albums continually without making an effort to pay.
The only pro (if you can call it that) of file sharing is that it might get bands noticed. There's a con in the pro though, what con? The fact that it's not getting paid for if it's getting shared.
-AC
Originally posted by Alpha Centauri
Yeah...so as I said:"The amount of sheer uneducated ignorance in this thread is quite depressing.
'Only download from bands who aren't struggling.'
No, just don't do it."
People are saying "I only buy the CD if they deserve it." If the album is worth your time, it's worth your money.
I don't understand why people believe they have the right to listen to these albums continually without making an effort to pay.
The only pro (if you can call it that) of file sharing is that it might get bands noticed. There's a con in the pro though, what con? The fact that it's not getting paid for if it's getting shared.
-AC
It would be interesting if someone did a proper study on the following.
Just how much illegal content people get hold of, versus how much they really intended buying and compare this to how much the government skims off now in taxes on people's ISP plans?
Why? To really work out wether it's worth the governments efforts to act as the music/movie industries policeman?
They may find that by closing down P2P will result in more lost tax income from people abandoning their broadband (or higher broadband) plans than what they would derive from the people really would have purchased the material anyhow.
I am sure the record/music industry lie profusely about how much money P2P costs them, so it would be a very difficult study indeed.
-SWS 🙂
People (for example Manny in this thread) use that lame old excuse.
"If they're rich it doesn't matter."
Not to their bank account, no. The idea isn't to make them rich though, it's to pay for their work. It's irrelevant how money they already have. I'd go out and buy a Metallica album just as fast as an album by a band not well known. So should everyone else.
It genuinely troubles me when people act as though it's cool to download.
-AC
I know a bunch of musicians who have had successful careers and are now approaching 50 and they really have little or nothing. It's such a sad thing because you spend your life working a career and by the time you are 50 you should be making the best money of your entire life and setting yourself up for an easy retirement. But the reality is hardly any of them are able to do this, they end up working dead end jobs just to get by and at best getting a little royalty check of a few grand every year..
The fact is (unless you become as huge as green day) the people who make the money in music are the labels and the managers etc These days nobody really gets a career, you are becoming irrelevant on your second album.. Some like Shannon Knoll for example might have a bit of success in the last few years but in ten or so years he will be working a shit job like anyone else.. Right now hes drunk on being famous and having too much fun to care and meanwhile everyone else is making the dough.
So my point is the argument that P2P rips artists off carries little credibilty in the majority of cases, what it does do is rip the labels off.
But funny thing is the labels rip artists off left right and centre, you just dont hear about it because its infintely harder for the artist on their own to gain the same attention. They basically have to make themselves heard on the back of their own cash and most dont have the ability to take on the labels. They just accept that its better to save what little money they got out of it rather than waste it on fighting companies with millions of dollars. Go and ask most bands how they feel about labels when the hype has dies down and i guarantee nearly all of them will say they feel ripped of.
So it begs the question if the labels arent squeeky clean in their practises why should they expect everyone else to be ? They are simply copping a taste of their own medicine i think. I strongly believe 2 wrongs dont make a right but they void the moral argument themselves in many ways so its not black and white like they would like to have you believe.
What i see is, this has the potential to crumble the entire industry.. And from the position of a music lover i wouldnt see this as a bad thing. The music wont stop and i only think it would get stronger. Instead of 3 major companies running everything we would probably get a landscape of many independants which would help allieviate the culture of crap that has taken over. Music nowdays is a breeding ground for any old hack who just wants to become famous and thats it. The culture the labels have created doesnt encourage people to find their own style and spend time at becoming good, so there is bugger all integirty and substance. Nowdays the mainstream is all Ashlee Simpson crap, and personally id love for that to change.
-SWS 🙂
Originally posted by Alpha Centauri
That's all neither here nor there though.By not paying for the CD, you are stopping the artists receiving money (however much) for their work.
This is wrong. It's that simple. No need to philosophise over it.
-AC
The music "industry" ruined itself. It decided it was easier to get a bunch of one-hit-wonders covering some old song (usually badly). Fill up the CD with 9 other tracks of garbage that the talentless loser wanted to release then sell it for some figure that is WAY more than the costs involved. The "artist" doesn't actually get close to $1 or 50p from the price of the CD that you pay. It's record company execs that are taking all the profits.
Peer to peer empowered people. Now, it's easy to just go and get the one song you like and not have to pay for 9 other tracks of shit on a CD. Record companies don't like it because it eats their profits - not because people are stealing. The record companies fought tooth and nail to block things like iTunes selling tracks individually because it means they're not ripping people off as much; people will only pay for the few things they actually like. Your argument also fails to hold water becase the people that download heavily on P2P would have never spent the money in the first place so how can anyone say there's lost income there?
Software makers have been dealing with piracy since the inception of commercial software. People don't want to pay for software. They pay so much for their computer that they feel they're entitled to it for free. Software companies have come up with some good inventions to make people pay for software. Some of those inventions are bad too. All in all, they still seem to be making a killing so how can you say that the industry is in a bad state?
The movie industry? Who wants to download some crappy camcorder copy of a prerelease? Who wants to download some crappy rip/encode of a movie when DVDs are dropping in price rapidly? The movie industry has attacked P2P differently. I have noticed CD prices have gone up of late (they're getting up over £18 or $35 in some stores) while DVD prices have dropped. You can get a movie that's about 1 month past release for under £10 or $20 in a lot of places now. That's pretty good value as far as I'm concerned.
-SWS 🙂
Posting an essay with about one paragraph of relevance isn't needed, Whirly.
Second, if you like the one song then buy it on iTunes. Buy the single somewhere.
You're obviously under the impression I'm saying go out and pay for an album you don't like. I'm not. I'm saying illegally downloading is wrong. Legally and morally, although the latter is subjective.
Can't justify it.
As for you saying my argument holds no water because people will download anyway:
If one person downloads one album, likes it, then deletes it and buys the record, nothing is legally lost. I morally disagree with it, but it's being paid for in the end. I know many who do that, so you're chatting from your rectum. People who use P2P aren't necessarily people who would never buy.
You're operating under the impression that I'm concerned about the corporate industry, I'm not so much. It's about the artist. If you're not paying them for their job, then why should you get paid when you go to work? As VVD said, you don't look at a t-shirt, diss it, then demand it for free.
"I wanna wear it but I'm not paying for it."
Then you aren't getting it.
You're dodging my point whilst making many more irrelevant ones.
-AC
Again, it is also fairy talw land to believe that destroying the music industry is somehow going to benefit music.
It's not- you can't have music in the way we understand it without an industry to support it. Remove the industry and you remove the money, and don't pretend for one moment we would have any level of decent music if it was not viable career option- i.e. you get money for it.
Downloading music is hardly the worst crime imaginable- but no-one has grounds to complain if it gets shut down; it is absolutely the business of the authorities to enforce such laws if they can.
Originally posted by Ushgarak
I also fail to understand how it can possibly be called double jeopardy.
If they already have a compensatory fund for copywrite infingement, any further monetary compensation they get from suing people would be considered double jeopardy.
Also, NONE of any compensation money goes to the artists. Record companies wouldn't be going bankrupt if they didn't release so much crappy music. Most people don't go out and buy a britney spears album cause they only like one or two songs off it and consider it a ripoff to pay 12 bucks for a CD single. so they download a pirate copy. If they put out something truely brilliant, human nature tells us that people would want to own a physical copy of it.
let's not forget that a lot of times music companies use illegal means to get their evidence. mostly through hacking into people's computers (technically legal under a rider attatched to the patriot act, which is set to expire anyway) and most recently by hacking into college internet II networks, thereby also causing several thousand dollars in collateral damage to network systems.
Originally posted by Sir Whirlysplat
Removing money does not remove creativity - people will always make music🙂Destroying the industry means it will be more about Music and less about image. The net means distribution and supply is simple.
No essay all relevant.
-SWS 🙂
The industry supplies the artist with far better publicity than mouth to mouth promotion ever could. The industry also supplies the artist with good recording equipment, something most independent artist can't afford. The industry is definitely needed.