The majority of the Top 40 hasn't interested me in years since I turned to the Rock scene, but with thanks to myspace, I have been introduced to new bands before they are signed.
I have no problem in paying for music, but I will only pay for it once. If I buy the mp3 of it, then I will burn it to audio cd, so I am able to rip it onto my 360 & any cd's I buy, get converted into mp3 for my online radio station (which I pay royalties for) & for my iphone.
I only caught a part of this but surely any legislation will become impossible to enforce. Cutting off someone solely because they are the named account holder but innocent of any wrong doing will be appealable in court no doubt and therefor causing a small fortune in legal aid, admin etc for the government.
I have no problem paying for music but I kind of resent artists like Metallica moaning from their Hollywood mansions about how they are suffering.
The music industry in its present form is dying, being killed by illegal downloading (seemingly by people who say there's no decent music out there, according to the comments here!).
It's all very well saying artists can make their money touring. Most won't make anywhere near what they could have from selling records.
And how would this argument apply to the other industries soon to be killed off by illegal downloading?: yes, the film and games industries. Who's going to bother investing millions of dollars creating a film or game if they can't make any money by selling it?
Imagine they stop people downloading via Bit Torrent and all the stuff they can catch you on. People then use encrypted downloads, music industry then think 'excellent no one is illigally downloading, but WTF sales still dropping'........do they not think people will then think 'hoorah they can't find me if i download through a encrypted option'. Then what exactly will they do when people jump on the non trackable option? they won't even know their downloading music.
Also, what sort of twisted logic is required to even try to justify stealing the work of a musical artist you supposedly admire (otherwise why are you even downloading it)?
It's theft, plain and simple. Worse than that, it's like stealing from a friend.
How they plan to catch you is to force the ISP to use deep-packet inspection on all internet users, to basically watch everything you do. This will affect everyone, not just filesharers. Also the cost of doing this will be born by the ISPs so in reality it will be passed on to us, the consumers.
Except the ISPs are refusing to do that. It would not be in their interest to dob their customers in. The bloke on the programme said they'd only give over information if someone had already been found guilty of an offence in a court of law.
Also, what sort of twisted logic is required to even try to justify stealing the work of a musical artist you supposedly admire (otherwise why are you even downloading it)?
It's theft, plain and simple. Worse than that, it's like stealing from a friend.
It's not "theft plain and simple". It's a very complex and ambiguous form of theft. People have always taped music and shows from the radio and television, but it's difficult to police because you aren't stealing anything physical and you aren't using it for your own financial gain. It is not the case that if you didn't download something you would buy it; as others have said, if you couldn't get it free, usually you wouldn't buy it at all, you'd just go without. So it couldn't be proved in court that you'd stolen any money from the owners of the work.
Of course, there are other complex areas of non-physical theft, such as copyright, plagiarism, etc. Where someone is stealing someone else's work for profit, it is sometimes possible for the owners to draw up a legal case and win in court. But even with copyright and performing rights issues, the vast majority of cases do not come to court--and certainly not if no financial loss to the owners is provable. A lawyer's warning to desist is usually the most that can be achieved.
It is a commonplace that ownership only exists in so far as it can be protected. Protection of music is so difficult to achieve that it will always fight a losing battle against those who do not have a "cop in the head", to use Agosto Boal's phrase.
The genie is out of the bottle, there is nothing they can do now and should just accept it and go away, if i want to swap song with a mate then so be it, the BPI (British Prick Industry) & the PRI can sod it, my business not theirs.
It is not the case that if you didn't download something you would buy it; as others have said, if you couldn't get it free, usually you wouldn't buy it at all, you'd just go without. So it couldn't be proved in court that you'd stolen any money from the owners of the work.
Granted, you wouldn't necessarily have bought everything you downloaded. So the effect on the music industry isn't as bad as if that were the case, but it's bad enough considering the proportion of people who are now simply not paying for music at all.
As I mentioned before, if this level of illegal downloading becomes the norm for films and games (as could well happen with ever higher download speeds), those industries could be even worse affected than the music industry, thanks to the far higher costs involved in creating a major movie or game.
What are the record companies going to do if after their 3 warnings people still go on downloading. Are they going to clog up the courts with illegal downloaders. Even if they take them to court and the downloaders refuse to pay any fine are they going to send them all to jail.
I don't think so, as the numbers illegally downloading are just too great.
I did laugh at that programme last night as they twice advertised the name of a big illegal downloading site, which i never heard of before they flashed it on the screen.
The music industry in its present form is dying, being killed by illegal downloading (seemingly by people who say there's no decent music out there, according to the comments here!).
Illegal downloading is only one of many causes. The increase in radio stations, abundance of music channels, and sites such as YouTube/MySpace are all just as much to blame. We have access to free (legal) music 24/7, so is it any wonder we've become apathetic towards buying it?
It's all very well saying artists can make their money touring. Most won't make anywhere near what they could have from selling records.
They probably would were record labels not so greedy, and give the artists a fair cut. This in turn would encourage more "true music fans" to acquire their much-loved artist's work legally.
And how would this argument apply to the other industries soon to be killed off by illegal downloading?: yes, the film and games industries. Who's going to bother investing millions of dollars creating a film or game if they can't make any money by selling it?
This is often the case in independent film. Thank god there's still people out there that value creativity and artistic expression over financial gain!
As for the studios, recent smashes such as Avatar and Alice In Wonderland suggest that they're doing all right for themselves.
Also, what sort of twisted logic is required to even try to justify stealing the work of a musical artist you supposedly admire (otherwise why are you even downloading it)?
It's theft, plain and simple. Worse than that, it's like stealing from a friend.
As I have said before I have downloaded music that is new to me maybe after hearing a song on a tv show now I'm sorry but I'm not going to fork out for an album of an "unknown" artist before I've listened to it a couple of times if I then like it I will buy it and usually the artists back catalogue and future albums
This is often the case in independent film. Thank god there's still people out there that value creativity and artistic expression over financial gain!
Agreed, but even independent films require hefty finance to make. And unless the cost can be recouped somehow, who can afford to make them?
It's not "theft plain and simple". It's a very complex and ambiguous form of theft. People have always taped music and shows from the radio and television, but it's difficult to police because you aren't stealing anything physical and you aren't using it for your own financial gain.
But it is still technically theft of copyright, and no ambiguity if such downloads are pirated and packaged then sold on as commonly occurs, eg in the DVD market. Besides, although I've taped or burned CDs in the past, if I really like a particular work, especially if it's rare or on special offer, I'm still happy to buy it.
What are the record companies going to do if after their 3 warnings people still go on downloading. Are they going to clog up the courts with illegal downloaders. Even if they take them to court and the downloaders refuse to pay any fine are they going to send them all to jail.
I don't think so, as the numbers illegally downloading are just too great.
Got to agree with you, the record companies will loose in the end, what's being proposed is unenforceable, you may stop some from downloading but the vast majority will continue, if ISP'S start limiting peoples connections then those customer's will leave that ISP's at the of their contract and go elsewhere, the peer-to-peer file sharing community will come up with other ways to stop ISP's from seeing what your doing, their already working on it
I haven't watched the programme yet, but I suspect it failed to point out that now singles sales are at the highest they have ever been. Something like 2-3 million tracks are downloaded legally every week. More and more people ARE paying for music again. The problem is the record labels aren't making enough money out of it because they are selling it cheaper than used to. This debate is so 8 years ago.
But it is still technically theft of copyright, and no ambiguity if such downloads are pirated and packaged then sold on as commonly occurs, eg in the DVD market. Besides, although I've taped or burned CDs in the past, if I really like a particular work, especially if it's rare or on special offer, I'm still happy to buy it.
No, I'm sorry, it's not technically theft of copyright, because you are not reselling work you have no right to. Certain sites do do that, and I suspect they will be the targets, not members of the public downloading for their own pleasure. And nothing is theft until proved to be theft in the courts: everyone is innocent until proven guilty, and it will be very difficult to prove anyone guilty of theft for downloading at home.
Copyright is a declaration of right and not a right in itself. In order to take effect, it has to be asserted. If it is not asserted effectively, it becomes impotent. In other words, you simply would not be taken to court for downloading, say, a Kasabian video at home, because first Kasabian's lawyers would have to prove that all measures were taken to challenge the downloadable presence of that video on the net. The home downloader would be way down the chain of operators whom Kasabian's lawyers would have to consider cautioning or taking to court. (Everything would have to go to court before an ISP provider would consider giving up someone's name and address. And if you are unlikely to be taken to court for downloading a song, then it's very arguable that you can't be considered to be technically stealing.)
There's no way that everybody would buy all the music they listen to that they haven't bought. No way at all.
So I don't know how they make out that all the music ripped and downloaded directly equates to record sales.
Anyway, I thought that record sales and the music industry were doing really well at the moment.
Maybe they shouldn't tease people so much with the opulent lifestyle they show off in their multi-million dollar music videos. It's the music business itself that propagates the notion that their artists are raking it in and living the dream. Thus selling the dream on to the public. But now they're telling us that their acts need to plead poverty?
Who's got the money that pays for all this promotion?
People get to know music they hear whilst wandering about on the internet and may like something they hear which makes them pay to go to an expensive gig on a tour that makes bucket-loads of cash.
If the music business cared that much about the 'artists', as they call them, on their own labels then they would pay them a fairer cut of the profits.
Much of the public idolise singers and musicians more than they often deserve credit for. The real cynicism and disrespect to the 'artists' comes from their paymasters themselves who are the ones who are REALLY ripping them off by paying them the paltry scraps of what's left over after they rake the profits in.
One of the advantages of the internet, is that it enables you to hear via file sharing or by YouTube or similar, tracks made by artists many years ago, long deleted by the record companies as they don't think there's the demand, or any money in re-issuing them.
All in all it just sounded like a bunch of bitter record producers moaning about not getting their cut any more.
They have been shouting the same tune (see what I did there) for years.
With encryption and proxy servers they will never stop anyone doing anything. I remember when porn first started on satellite feeds from other countries and our Government tried to stop it. That didn't work and they couldn't do a thing about it in the end.
The genie is out of the bottle and emigrated by now. There is no putting it back.
In the end the programme was just about some record producers shouting we want a law to stop this. There isn't one yet and impossible to do if they do try.
Alot of this stopping filesharing malarky is down to the users not pressing the 'encrypt traffic' buttons within the software. Nor will it stop Newsgroup folk who use SSL security. They can shut/threaten all they want, it will just move people onto ways that can't be tracked (well can be tracked but they won't know what you actually downloaded).
Maybe if the artists bother to make some better quality tracks instead of singing about any old crap, people might actually buy the music. Booohooo profits are down, excuse me...so their down yet their still making a profit. How about make a loss then complain no?. Not to mention companies like Apple know their helping fuel downloading. What did they think was going to happen??
Before iPods we all had memory sticks with 256mb/1gb space on and we could all whack a few tunes on those.....then the almighty iPod comes along with it's massive 30gb hard drive, what did it get advertised like? oh yes 'the new 30gb iPod can hold 20,000 songs'.......are they stupid? who would pay 79p 20,000 times to fill up that iPod? let alone even a 100times (why get a hundred songs when you paid for a device that can hold 20,000).
That's a very good point. Did they honestly think that people would fill all this 30gig+ of disk space up with music that they paid for?
It's like telling everybody it's happy hour but don't drink too much.
THEY (The music business) came up with the idea of selling digital music to us in the first place when they transferred from analogue vinyl to digital CD. As soon as they did that then they created their own problems in the first place by trying to make a quick buck off us.
I clearly remember them flogging them to us with the promise that if we all changed to CDs then album prices would plummet as they only cost a few pence to make.
Who was cheating who back then?
Excuse me if it didn't look like a big fat lie. Everybody fell for the con though.
ie, you know your tortured logic has backed you into a corner so you’re dropping out before everyone else realises it. FYI, I’ve worked in the biz since the early 90s so it’s unfortunate you came up against someone who knows what they’re on about.
Pre-recorded VHS cassettes (even without adjusting for inflation most of the time) were more expensive to the punter then than DVDs are now which is the exact opposite of what you claimed, that somehow now the consumer is being ripped off when in ye olde times they weren’t. And I haven’t even mentioned that practically every pre-recorded VHS from back then has degraded, some being totally unwatchable whereas DVD has a virtually unlimited life especially with the backward compatibility of blu-ray machines.
Seriously, think it through next time.
That's quite a mighty claim considering that DVDs haven't been on the market for a lifetime yet. Wouldn't we have to wait until the people who bought the first DVDs start dying off in a few decades time first before we can test out that theory?
Maybe DVD's have proven to last a lifetime in dog years.
I remember CD technology being sold to the public with the very same claims. That they would last a lifetime and were virtually indestructible too.
That's quite a mighty claim considering that DVDs haven't been on the market for a lifetime yet. Wouldn't we have to wait until the people who bought the first DVDs start dying off in a few decades time first before we can test out that theory?
Maybe DVD's have proven to last a lifetime in dog years.
I remember CD technology being sold to the public with the very same claims. That they would last a lifetime and were virtually indestructible too.
Very true.
I've had to bin a handful of DVDs due to them becoming unplayable due to`laser rot`.
Very true.
I've had to bin a handful of DVDs due to them becoming unplayable due to`laser rot`.
I know what you mean.
Business itself sells each new advance in media storage by increasing the storage capacity, be it the new media storage platform or a new computer which has X amounts of terrabytes of storage capacity.
What on earth do they think the public are going to do with all this excess storage? Put a few holiday snaps on it?
It's like an off-license with the front door left wide open with its lights on all night and an alcoholic being told about it by the shop owner themselves.
Comments
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/4206.html
I have no problem in paying for music, but I will only pay for it once. If I buy the mp3 of it, then I will burn it to audio cd, so I am able to rip it onto my 360 & any cd's I buy, get converted into mp3 for my online radio station (which I pay royalties for) & for my iphone.
I have no problem paying for music but I kind of resent artists like Metallica moaning from their Hollywood mansions about how they are suffering.
It's all very well saying artists can make their money touring. Most won't make anywhere near what they could have from selling records.
And how would this argument apply to the other industries soon to be killed off by illegal downloading?: yes, the film and games industries. Who's going to bother investing millions of dollars creating a film or game if they can't make any money by selling it?
It's theft, plain and simple. Worse than that, it's like stealing from a friend.
Except the ISPs are refusing to do that. It would not be in their interest to dob their customers in. The bloke on the programme said they'd only give over information if someone had already been found guilty of an offence in a court of law.
It's not "theft plain and simple". It's a very complex and ambiguous form of theft. People have always taped music and shows from the radio and television, but it's difficult to police because you aren't stealing anything physical and you aren't using it for your own financial gain. It is not the case that if you didn't download something you would buy it; as others have said, if you couldn't get it free, usually you wouldn't buy it at all, you'd just go without. So it couldn't be proved in court that you'd stolen any money from the owners of the work.
Of course, there are other complex areas of non-physical theft, such as copyright, plagiarism, etc. Where someone is stealing someone else's work for profit, it is sometimes possible for the owners to draw up a legal case and win in court. But even with copyright and performing rights issues, the vast majority of cases do not come to court--and certainly not if no financial loss to the owners is provable. A lawyer's warning to desist is usually the most that can be achieved.
It is a commonplace that ownership only exists in so far as it can be protected. Protection of music is so difficult to achieve that it will always fight a losing battle against those who do not have a "cop in the head", to use Agosto Boal's phrase.
Power to the Downloader.
Granted, you wouldn't necessarily have bought everything you downloaded. So the effect on the music industry isn't as bad as if that were the case, but it's bad enough considering the proportion of people who are now simply not paying for music at all.
As I mentioned before, if this level of illegal downloading becomes the norm for films and games (as could well happen with ever higher download speeds), those industries could be even worse affected than the music industry, thanks to the far higher costs involved in creating a major movie or game.
I don't think so, as the numbers illegally downloading are just too great.
I did laugh at that programme last night as they twice advertised the name of a big illegal downloading site, which i never heard of before they flashed it on the screen.
Illegal downloading is only one of many causes. The increase in radio stations, abundance of music channels, and sites such as YouTube/MySpace are all just as much to blame. We have access to free (legal) music 24/7, so is it any wonder we've become apathetic towards buying it?
They probably would were record labels not so greedy, and give the artists a fair cut. This in turn would encourage more "true music fans" to acquire their much-loved artist's work legally.
This is often the case in independent film. Thank god there's still people out there that value creativity and artistic expression over financial gain!
As for the studios, recent smashes such as Avatar and Alice In Wonderland suggest that they're doing all right for themselves.
As I have said before I have downloaded music that is new to me maybe after hearing a song on a tv show now I'm sorry but I'm not going to fork out for an album of an "unknown" artist before I've listened to it a couple of times if I then like it I will buy it and usually the artists back catalogue and future albums
Agreed, but even independent films require hefty finance to make. And unless the cost can be recouped somehow, who can afford to make them?
Got to agree with you, the record companies will loose in the end, what's being proposed is unenforceable, you may stop some from downloading but the vast majority will continue, if ISP'S start limiting peoples connections then those customer's will leave that ISP's at the of their contract and go elsewhere, the peer-to-peer file sharing community will come up with other ways to stop ISP's from seeing what your doing, their already working on it
No, I'm sorry, it's not technically theft of copyright, because you are not reselling work you have no right to. Certain sites do do that, and I suspect they will be the targets, not members of the public downloading for their own pleasure. And nothing is theft until proved to be theft in the courts: everyone is innocent until proven guilty, and it will be very difficult to prove anyone guilty of theft for downloading at home.
Copyright is a declaration of right and not a right in itself. In order to take effect, it has to be asserted. If it is not asserted effectively, it becomes impotent. In other words, you simply would not be taken to court for downloading, say, a Kasabian video at home, because first Kasabian's lawyers would have to prove that all measures were taken to challenge the downloadable presence of that video on the net. The home downloader would be way down the chain of operators whom Kasabian's lawyers would have to consider cautioning or taking to court. (Everything would have to go to court before an ISP provider would consider giving up someone's name and address. And if you are unlikely to be taken to court for downloading a song, then it's very arguable that you can't be considered to be technically stealing.)
So I don't know how they make out that all the music ripped and downloaded directly equates to record sales.
Anyway, I thought that record sales and the music industry were doing really well at the moment.
Maybe they shouldn't tease people so much with the opulent lifestyle they show off in their multi-million dollar music videos. It's the music business itself that propagates the notion that their artists are raking it in and living the dream. Thus selling the dream on to the public. But now they're telling us that their acts need to plead poverty?
Who's got the money that pays for all this promotion?
People get to know music they hear whilst wandering about on the internet and may like something they hear which makes them pay to go to an expensive gig on a tour that makes bucket-loads of cash.
If the music business cared that much about the 'artists', as they call them, on their own labels then they would pay them a fairer cut of the profits.
Much of the public idolise singers and musicians more than they often deserve credit for. The real cynicism and disrespect to the 'artists' comes from their paymasters themselves who are the ones who are REALLY ripping them off by paying them the paltry scraps of what's left over after they rake the profits in.
They have been shouting the same tune (see what I did there) for years.
With encryption and proxy servers they will never stop anyone doing anything. I remember when porn first started on satellite feeds from other countries and our Government tried to stop it. That didn't work and they couldn't do a thing about it in the end.
The genie is out of the bottle and emigrated by now. There is no putting it back.
In the end the programme was just about some record producers shouting we want a law to stop this. There isn't one yet and impossible to do if they do try.
That's a very good point. Did they honestly think that people would fill all this 30gig+ of disk space up with music that they paid for?
It's like telling everybody it's happy hour but don't drink too much.
THEY (The music business) came up with the idea of selling digital music to us in the first place when they transferred from analogue vinyl to digital CD. As soon as they did that then they created their own problems in the first place by trying to make a quick buck off us.
I clearly remember them flogging them to us with the promise that if we all changed to CDs then album prices would plummet as they only cost a few pence to make.
Who was cheating who back then?
Excuse me if it didn't look like a big fat lie. Everybody fell for the con though.
That's quite a mighty claim considering that DVDs haven't been on the market for a lifetime yet. Wouldn't we have to wait until the people who bought the first DVDs start dying off in a few decades time first before we can test out that theory?
Maybe DVD's have proven to last a lifetime in dog years.
I remember CD technology being sold to the public with the very same claims. That they would last a lifetime and were virtually indestructible too.
Very true.
I've had to bin a handful of DVDs due to them becoming unplayable due to`laser rot`.
I know what you mean.
Business itself sells each new advance in media storage by increasing the storage capacity, be it the new media storage platform or a new computer which has X amounts of terrabytes of storage capacity.
What on earth do they think the public are going to do with all this excess storage? Put a few holiday snaps on it?
It's like an off-license with the front door left wide open with its lights on all night and an alcoholic being told about it by the shop owner themselves.