Illegal Music Downloading

[Lord Grendel]

I agree with some of your points Dairenn, but no matter what the labels are not doing right by their artists. I have never heard One complaint when we all change media, and buy the same albums over and over again. They don't do any marketing, the division of revenue is still Heavily weighted in their favor, and they retain control over the artists content.

For new artists I agree it is difficult to get started, I have already said as much a few pages back. For those of us that have been loyal to our bands for decades I have no guilt taking a 5.1 copy of DSOTM by Pink Floyd whatsoever. I have bought that album 6 times over the years, and still the band doesn't get the price of a single CD from all those sales.

The average split is between 12% and 15% of the royalties the artists collect from a sale.

So if it's $10.00 a CD for example after paying for legal copies for years, the band still only gets, $7.20 from all those sales.

Meanwhile back at the Greed is Good record company they have pocketed a cool $52.80 from those sales, and they did No marketing at all, just the cost of printing the CD's/DVD's which is not that expensive.

This is a complex issue, and my major disagreement is with the shoddy treatment of the artists themselves, if the major labels go under, then I hope someone comes up with a far more equitable arrangement than the one they are using now, I call it the "Capone" business model.

[Mr. Shadow]

Originally Posted by Dairenn Given how cheap, easy, faster and higher quality legal downloads are, it's not worth the chance that like I (or my neighbor accidentally) gets sued by the RIAA. Since they're using IP addresses (incorrectly) to personally identify people, you don't want to wind up like that one single mother who didn't even know what an MP3 was getting sued to the tune of a few hundred grand because someone was using her non-password protected Wi-Fi connection to the Internet with a laptop stuck out the window. If you consider yourself against stealing in general, then you're probably against illegally downloading music. Intellectual property is given that designation due to the time/effort/money used to produce the material in question. There is a reason the concept of copyrights actually appears in the US Constitution; the dudes who wrote that were pretty smart. Then there is the matter of material that is out of print and has been, for intents and purposes, abandoned due to the perceived lack of commercial viability. While the majority of illegally pirated music is Top 40 garbage that DOES make the labels a lot of money, there are some MP3s floating around of music that is basically impossible to find. Not every town has a small, local record store specializing in out of print vinyl and cassettes. Websites on the Internet have helped with things like this, but they're not the ones the RIAA or the IFPI are talking about being the major pariah the way Napster and now The Pirate Bay are. One might be able to mentally justify it by saying, "well, I'll buy tickets to this artists' concerts, which is where they make most of their money anyway." But from the perspective of the artists and their representatives, there's no way THEY can account for who's really doing that. No other business works that way. "Well, I'm going to walk out of your dealership with car stereos, but I promise to buy that really expensive car you're trying to sell, because that's where you're going to make most of your money anyway." That just seems silly. In fact, one could argue that the losses taken by the stolen music eventually offset any gain in supposed, future-promised concert tickets.

They aren't suing any new people. They were losing too many cases and most little violations cost more to prosecute than any possible return.

[Mr. Shadow]

New thought:

How many bad albums did groups put out just to satisfy a recording contract?
Then the execs get mad because nobody buys the garbage they forced out.

[Lord Grendel]

^^That did happen more than once, some bands would release a pile of shite on purpose just to fulfill their obligations and give the label the finger on the way out.

I would never do that myself, I would not want my name or band associated with anything but the best work we could put out and leave with my head held high.

[Magic]

I just saw on the CNN news ticker a couple days ago that a woman was just served papers suing her for over a 100K for downloading 3 songs off of Frostwire.......


Rediculous. I am a neutral party on the issue of downloading, but when a petty theft commands such a high price, then I have doubts about the system that governs. The RIAA has now become the bandito and lynch mob.


IMHO.........shut the downloading sites down. IF they are hosted in a country that allows downloading, block that site from US * and other countries where downloading is illegal * from access to the sites. That is simple....Hell even youtube blocks illegal content.


I am not fooled in the least about the RIAA and other governing bodies, they love this little "cat and mouse" game they have set up.

[The Beatles]

Originally Posted by Magic I just saw on the CNN news ticker a couple days ago that a woman was just served papers suing her for over a 100K for downloading 3 songs off of Frostwire....... Rediculous. I am a neutral party on the issue of downloading, but when a petty theft commands such a high price, then I have doubts about the system that governs. The RIAA has now become the bandito and lynch mob. IMHO.........shut the downloading sites down. IF they are hosted in a country that allows downloading, block that site from US * and other countries where downloading is illegal * from access to the sites. That is simple....Hell even youtube blocks illegal content. I am not fooled in the least about the RIAA and other governing bodies, they love this little "cat and mouse" game they have set up.

Thats pretty tame compared to what they could have done, apparently. The maximum penalty per downloaded song is 150,000 dollars. That is insane. I think they should charge the worth of the song, and then like a 500 dollar penalty to keep people from doing it. 500 dollars would be just as much of a deterrent as 100,000 dollars, and the only difference is that its the music industry being greedy.

[The Beatles]

Originally Posted by Lord Grendel ^^That did happen more than once, some bands would release a pile of shite on purpose just to fulfill their obligations and give the label the finger on the way out. I would never do that myself, I would not want my name or band associated with anything but the best work we could put out and leave with my head held high.

You mean what the Rolling Stones have been putting out during the late 80's-now?

[Lord Grendel]

^^I will always like the early Stones the best, but not everything they've released since the late 80's to now is shite.

I have collected almost all their albums now, but I do play the early ones the most, nostalgia among other things is one of the reasons.

[Magic]

Originally Posted by The Beatles Thats pretty tame compared to what they could have done, apparently. The maximum penalty per downloaded song is 150,000 dollars. That is insane. I think they should charge the worth of the song, and then like a 500 dollar penalty to keep people from doing it. 500 dollars would be just as much of a deterrent as 100,000 dollars, and the only difference is that its the music industry being greedy.

IMHO, I don't feel the industry has proven that 1 song downloaded will translate into a loss of 150,000 dollars to the artist. First, they need to prove how much "loss" there is to the artists from downloading. To this day, there is no proof of any loss from downloading. The RIAA says there is a certain percentage of music sales that are lost, but that could be a trend caused by the economy, the season of the year, or any number of factors.


For example, if I take you to court for a business loss, I have to prove my losses. The RIAA is skipping this step in the judiciary process.


Again, I believe people were set up to Download. This is the new trend in music........digital.

[The Beatles]

Originally Posted by Magic IMHO, I don't feel the industry has proven that 1 song downloaded will translate into a loss of 150,000 dollars to the artist. First, they need to prove how much "loss" there is to the artists from downloading. To this day, there is no proof of any loss from downloading. The RIAA says there is a certain percentage of music sales that are lost, but that could be a trend caused by the economy, the season of the year, or any number of factors. For example, if I take you to court for a business loss, I have to prove my losses. The RIAA is skipping this step in the judiciary process. Again, I believe people were set up to Download. This is the new trend in music........digital.

Yeah theres this thing called a recession going on in the US....greedy jackasses.

[Harkat]

aaah the evil side of Capitalism. ( I hope I have the right terminology here )
I dont believe that art should be restricted to only those who can pay for it. Music is an art form and Capitalism
IMHO, Capitalism is the downfall of humankind.
This started with the industrial revolution and electricity. I read that electricity was not going to sell because nobody saw the point of having electricity when they had slaves to work for them. So in order for electricity to sell, they had to create a lifestyle. That lifestyle involved electric lights, electric microwaves and electric stoves. Cook faster, eat earlier, right? Then they moved on to electric computers, cars, machinery.
Now its a basic commodity ( which we have to pay for ). Everything has converted to electricity. Next the Feminist movement were women are targeted with makeup, fashion, relationship 'advice', ect.
Dont mistake me, I am 120% behind women's rights!!
Now everything is controlled by big corporations. The media basically controls our social, public and private lives. They have created their own lifestyle based on peoples greed. Also largely due to the media is our now sex orientated world, its everywhere!!
Even our morals, ethics and standards have dropped!

Music Record Companies put their fingers in the pie at the beginning, now they control the bands to a very large degree.
Music isnt as good now?
Record companies can make money off pop and techno music. Why change the music? Give them the same thing!
So you got originality? Can it make us lots of money? Maybe? How about you just play tried and trusted music to make us money, lest we forget to print and distribute your music?

That my opinion, anyone have any better opinions?

[Lord Grendel]

When I was surfing the other day I came across a really interesting article about the music industry in the 70's. As many audiophiles know and ordinary music fans too the quality of the many vinyl albums pressed and released in the US and Canada were of a far inferior quality to our European and Japanese neighbours, they never used "recycled" vinyl in their pressings and didn't reduce the amount of vinyl used either, unlike many of the mass produced albums made in North America. And the damned assholes Knew their quality control was terrible and they did Nothing to stop it. They couldn't press their records fast enough to meet the growing demand for the product, and their whole purpose was to make as much money as possible without caring at all about the final quality of the product. Many purists noticed right away something was wrong, and started to buy "Imports" from England and Japan mostly, and the differences between the same record bought in our shops and these imports was noticeable as soon as you took the record out to play it. Pure vinyl has less surface noise clicks and pops than recycled vinyl, the heavier the album the better the grooves and the longer lasting the album so even though you spent quite a bit more for an import they were worth every penny.

I mention that to show again that record companies here at least are all about themselves and always have been, to the point of intentionally selling us inferior/defective goods to make a fast buck, and from what evidence I've seen the last 10+ years when faced with the digital revolution I have the same level of confidence in them that I did before, which is 0.

[Harkat]

Capitalism at work.
Its really annoying how they do that. Then they go out and ruin peoples lives and get away with it!!
And the law allows this as well!!
Are people that oblivious to all this?

Im glad that Wintersun is taking their sweet time making sure that their next album is perfect!

[OptimisticFutureBlues]

A debate such as this is a separator for sure. Very similar to the Republican/Democrat battle we've got going on over here.

Some want to give to others, some want to protect whats theirs. I think its a great 'trend'. I personally think its somewhat of a creative savior. Once the arts can be freely shared without worry of currency, we will truly know the art of craft. Not for monetary benefit, we wouldn't rely on it for bread on the table, just a way to express ourselves.

Sure there are people who are already instated into the process of monetary payout for artistic creativity, already part of that wing of the system. They obviously rely on their art for money, so when people start to share what should be paid for, the dogs get angry. More and more nowadays artists are beginning to loosen up. What these 'we've been here awhile and we know how its done' artists need to realize is that there is plenty of money to be made at live shows, and that the process is evolutionary. Ticket price, additional swag, and exclusive concert releases are all just a few ways to make cash at those shows. Just because their pretty piece of packaged creativity didn't do well monetarily, doesn't mean they should get pissy with free trade. In other words, they should base their opinion of how well it did on the attendance of their shows and they way it effects the audience emotionally.

[Harkat]

Well, yea the artists deserved to get paid for what they have done but with record companies, very little money gets through to the artist, the rest goes to the label company and all their 'little' costs and fee's