[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

Really? We're down to a handful of studios capable of doing a proper job here.

Maybe the mass studio extinction of the past fifteen years just hasn't happened in the U.S.?

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

And now the copyright cartel is trying to get even more nonsensical "rights," wherein you'll be forced to buy the same work many, many times.

You've always just been a licensee of the music, NEVER the owner.

Look at that old LP label - the one that has the "Unauthorized broadcast, duplication etc. etc. prohibited by law" on it.

How is a clause like that possible if you own it?

Because if you wanted to do something else with it than was intended - like play it at a public party, or broadcast it on the radio, or play it as background in a commercial setting, like a café or a bar - you'd have to pay additional licensing fees.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

You've always just been a licensee of the music, NEVER the owner.

Look at that old LP label - the one that has the "Unauthorized broadcast, duplication etc. etc. prohibited by law" on it.

How is a clause like that possible if you own it?

Because if you wanted to do something else with it than was intended - like play it at a public party, or broadcast it on the radio, or play it as background in a commercial setting, like a café or a bar - you'd have to pay additional licensing fees.

That's all well and good, but still doesn't explain why I should have to pay more if I want to privately listen to it in both my house and car.

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

Maybe the mass studio extinction of the past fifteen years just hasn't happened in the U.S.?

They've been dropping, but there are still enough that Sony isn't having to go around begging for studio time.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

Maybe the mass studio extinction of the past fifteen years just hasn't happened in the U.S.?

Thinking about it, it could be that a lot of the major studios in the US have been retooling for dual use (audio and AV) and their TV/movie industry is keeping them alive. Here, at least, it seems that AV studios tend to be separate specialist facilities.

Maybe?

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

For a conservative, you seem to have a pretty big problem with the concept of ownership.

You don't own ideas, copyrights, patents and such give you a framework to make money off them. An ingenious idea for a new gadget cannot be owned like a car. Copyrights got extended and extended solely because the media industry was lobbying for it. Music and movies are not just things to make money off, but are also part of culture. When you cannot make money off them anymore (say, after a reasonable time span) or companies have no interest in making money off them anymore, then I see no reason why this IP shouldn't be given back to public domain.

All this whining about how expensive equipment is leading nowhere really: people will continue to be able to make money off entertainment, but the way they do it will be different. I haven't seen any good solution launched from the classical entertainment industry and I can't help but think that they need to be forced every step of the way.

[shifuimam]

I'm bored and on vacation this week, so I'm going to take your petty flame-bait and run with it. GO SHIF.

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

To summarize Oreo's tl;dr post up there, the jailing of the owners of TPB is just a band-aid for a much larger issue.

Current copyright laws are starting to falter in this era of digital media. The businesses that produce the media are trying to hang on to a business model that just doesn't work anymore.

The entertainment industry knows we don't need it. Sure, people have become more and more addicted to TV and movies and the Internet, but Pixar is not like Shell Oil - we need oil, whereas we can live without this year's CGI feature film. The entertainment industry as a whole knows this, and they're having a real hard time coming up with compelling reasons to continue buying their products and services.

Why should I buy a CD for $17.99 when I can get it for free? It doesn't really support the artists - there's plenty of evidence out there that RIAA-signed artists don't get sh!t from the RIAA for at least the first few years of their contracts. If I want to support the artists, I'd rather mail a check directly to them.

I don't really have a problem buying a CD from an independent music label. Their production expenses are higher, and your $17.99 isn't just going to line the pockets of music executives. It's actually going to support the people who created the music in the first place.

(Just to keep the context of my post, here, bolding added for new emphasis)

Originally Posted by Doofy 

The entertainment industry is not, by any stretch of the imagination, hurting for money.

Yes, it is.

No, it isn't. According to the New York Times, Atlantic records (just one of the members of the RIAA) posted profits of $10.1 billion in 2008.

According to Arstechnica, the MPAA as a whole made an estimated profit of $9.78 billion in 2008, which set the new record for highest annual profit.

No, the media industry isn't hurting for money.

There are plenty of industries who are drowning in financial problems right now - real estate, American auto companies, airlines...when you look at the billions of dollars disappearing from those businesses and look at the pittance the MPAA and RIAA claim to have lost due to downloading, it isn't sh!t. According to that same NYT article, Atlantic posted profits of $14.6 billion in 1999. While it's true that they have lost some revenue, they are not hurting for money. The CEOs of the members of the RIAA aren't in the streets. Bono hasn't had to sell any of his vacation homes yet, and Mick Jagger can still afford to have his teeth bleached whenever he wants.

The RIAA complaining about not having enough money is akin to that NBA player, Latrell Sprewell, getting pissed off that the MN Timberwolves offered him only a $21 million contract extension, spouting that he "[has] a family to feed". Sorry, but that dude got no pity from me - $21 million is more than I'll see in my lifetime, let alone in three years. Yeah, the RIAA's lost nearly five billion USD in the last decade, but they're still raking in money like it's going out of style. The solution is not to treat their customers like criminals. The solution is to accept this era of digital media and find a way to work with it. Taking away DRM-infected digital music downloads is a good start, and I'm glad they did it.

I doubt it costs millions of dollars to record that CD.

Hundreds of thousands. That's if you ain't got to buy the gear to start with. Then it's millions.

Sorry, but you're still not getting my pity.

First off, they have plenty of money to spend, and plenty of investors. Secondly, let's take one album (one of my favorites, in fact) - Avril Lavigne's The Best Damn Thing, released by Sony BMG in April 2007. It debuted with 289,000 copies sold.

Let's say that it cost Sony $350,000 to record the album (I don't buy it, but whatever). Now, let's say that the average sale price of the CD was $15, it cost $3 to produce a single copy of the album in full retail swag, and the RIAA got...I don't know, $10 from the sale of each CD. That's a total of just about $2.9 million. Minus the $350k to make the album, Sony just raked in $2.5 million - on the first day the album was released. Sales may have tapered off, but they're still profiting off that album, two years later. While I do realize that parts of the sale of each copy go to different places, this isn't a case of the RIAA being forced to charge $18 an album. Apple didn't force them to charge $1.29 for popular songs, either (maybe - give Apple's propensity to overcharge for everything, it wouldn't surprise me if they had some say in the new iTunes pricing tiers). They do it to make money, because they know people will keep paying for it.

There is zero justifiable reason for Comcast to charge $50 a month for cable television, but they still do it. Why? Because they have a monopoly on the cable industry wherever they're present, and can charge whatever the hell they want - Americans are TV addicts and will pay whatever the cost to get their nightly dose of reality TV and crime dramas. It's not a case of Comcast being barely able to pay their employees because of how "little" they charge for their service.

The entertainment industry as a whole (RIAA, MPAA, movie theatres, cable TV providers, professional sports, etc) is extremely lucrative. It's one damn big reason why people are so desperate to get into entertainment - it's easy money, given how much you get for the level of work required.

I'd much rather see the entertainment industry emulate the pharmaceutical industry. There, companies only retain a patent (copyright) on their product for a limited period of time. It's expected that, in that time, they will appropriately price their product to recoup the billions of dollars spent in R&D to create that product. Once the patent is out, it's a free-for-all, and anyone can manufacture that drug and charge whatever the hell they want for it.

No.

"No" to what? Having CD pricing work the same as drug pricing, or do you seriously believe that pharmaceutical companies should be forced to only charge pennies for the drugs they produce, even at the initial release of the drug?

Wouldn't it be nice if the entertainment industry worked the same way? Instead of the Rolling Stones continuing to get royalties for the rest of their lives for an album made in 1975, the copyright is limited, so that they can recoup the costs of production (and make a profit), but not continue to buttrape their fans for decades to come.

For a conservative, you seem to have a pretty big problem with the concept of ownership.

Not really. I like owning stuff. I'd love to live off the royalties of some crappy rock album from 1972. I also, unfortunately, understand the concept of supply and demand.

The music industry as a whole is finding themselves less popular than they used to be, and it's not just because of how they treat their entire customer base as criminals (Sony rootkit debacle, anyone?). It's because they put out crappy music. Aside from the aforementioned Avril Lavigne album, all my favorite albums are old. I don't have the faintest idea who's on the top 40 list right now, because popular music sucks balls for the most part. It's poorly done and completely contrived. You have bands who start out good on an indie label and go to crap due to joining up with the RIAA and being pressured to do things the corporate way, and you have artists who have simply been hired an extremely good voice coach to turn them into fabricated pop sensations.

It's all crap. It's why we see people on Britain's Got Talent and the X-Factor and America's Got Talent and American Idol, and are stunned by the quality of the voices, because what the RIAA is trying to shove down our throats is total crap.

In the same way, I haven't gone to see a movie in the theatre in years, save for the second Chronicles of Narnia movie, and I suppose I'll go see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in the theatre as well. Why? Because Hollywood is churning out utter drivel these days. It's all crappy chick flicks, sadistic violence like the Saw and Hostel series, or "arsty" self-important crap with no plot and weird dialogue and music. It's not worth my money.

but as technology gets cheaper, one could assume that the cost of production has gotten cheaper as well.

No. Two months ago I bought about $30,000 worth of gear. That very same gear would cost me $43,500 today.
No matter how many Apple fanbois say otherwise, you cannot create production quality recordings (that's the ones you can earn a living off) on a copy of GarageBand.

You're talking as a small-time guy. You really think the RIAA is paying the same prices you are for the recording equipment? That's like saying that a corporation is paying Dell the same price for a desktop PC that you see on dell.com. It's called bidding, and it happens everywhere.

I'm currently working on a project for the university where I work to allow faculty members to order nodes for a new supercomputing cluster. They don't have the final configurations and prices on the node configurations, because they're still awaiting final bids from several vendors. While a node is going to be $2500 on this new contract, the same hardware might be $4000 if you just went onto NewEgg and built it yourself, or logged on to Dell or HP's website and looked up their retail prices.

You may have paid $30k for recording equipment, but you can just about be guaranteed that Sony BG or Atlantic or whoever else in the RIAA isn't paying nearly that much for the stuff they're using (relative, of course - you know what I mean).

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

Ownership is one thing. The idea that you (or even other people who decide to associate themselves with you after you're dead and buried) have complete control over a thought and all variations on that thought forever just because it came to you first is very odd and not at all the intent of copyright. It used to be that there was a very rich public domain that people used as fuel for creativity and learning. Copyright was created to help enrich culture by encouraging people to add to this public domain. It was meant to give people limited control over what other people did with their creation so they could profit.

But then corporations got greedy and Congress got bribed, and now we have ridiculous lingering copyrights on things like the Happy Birthday song and Steamboat Willie, and teachers feel nervous about using copyright material in their classroom — even though that's plainly fair use. And now the copyright cartel is trying to get even more nonsensical "rights," wherein you'll be forced to buy the same work many, many times.

As a supporter of the arts and a conservative, I think that's just wrong.

THIS.

Especially the part about people claiming ownership of your music after you're six feet under. Screw that.

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

You don't own ideas, copyrights, patents and such give you a framework to make money off them. An ingenious idea for a new gadget cannot be owned like a car. Copyrights got extended and extended solely because the media industry was lobbying for it. Music and movies are not just things to make money off, but are also part of culture. When you cannot make money off them anymore (say, after a reasonable time span) or companies have no interest in making money off them anymore, then I see no reason why this IP shouldn't be given back to public domain.

This as well. This is really the only area where this kind of thing happens. As in my previous (and entirely pertinent) example, the drug industry doesn't get to eternally charge whatever they want for the fruit of their labor. People would go nuclear if that happened. It's surprising that we're not as up in arms about the entertainment industry endlessly screwing us on their retail prices. After a year, the RIAA will have recouped any losses and pulled in a mighty hefty profit from the sales of an album. So why are they still going after people sharing Stones and Beatles albums recorded decades ago? Will Paul McCartney be unable to feed his horses or put gas in his Aston-Martin if he doesn't make his millions in royalties this year?

I mean, really.

[iMOTOR]

Stealing is stealing. I guess the question is; if you willfully help someone steal, are you committing a crime too?

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by iMOTOR 

Stealing is stealing. I guess the question is; if you willfully help someone steal, are you committing a crime too?

Ah, but what *is* stealing? If I take a photograph of a painting and distribute it without personal gain, is that stealing? If I make an exact duplicate of a painting and distribute it without personal gain, is *that* stealing?

Copyright infringement isn't theft. No matter how hard the RIAA and MPAA tries to convince us otherwise.

[iMOTOR]

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak 

Ah, but what *is* stealing?

steal |stēl|
verb ( past stole |stōl|; past part. stolen |ˈstōlən|)
1 [ trans. ] take (another person's property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it : thieves stole her bicycle | [ intrans. ] she was found guilty of stealing from her employers | [as adj. ] ( stolen) stolen goods.
• dishonestly pass off (another person's ideas) as one's own : accusations that one group had stolen ideas from the other were soon flying.

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak 

If I take a photograph of a painting and distribute it without personal gain, is that stealing? If I make an exact duplicate of a painting and distribute it without personal gain, is *that* stealing?

If done without permission, then yes.

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak 

Copyright infringement isn't theft.

It is most definitely theft, at least in the legal sense.

There are different kinds of IP theft, for example, if an illustrator accuses a company of using her original artwork, a civil court would have to decide if the company is guilty of copyright infringement and also what damages they owe. In this case, taking for free what would otherwise be sold is considered a criminal act.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

I'm bored and on vacation this week, so I'm going to take your petty flame-bait and run with it. GO SHIF.

Petty flame-bait? I don't think so. You've just made excuses as to why people should steal off me.

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Sorry, but you're still not getting my pity.

I don't need your pity. I'm simply telling you how things are.

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

First off, they have plenty of money to spend, and plenty of investors. Secondly, let's take one album (one of my favorites, in fact) - Avril Lavigne's The Best Damn Thing, released by Sony BMG in April 2007. It debuted with 289,000 copies sold.

Let's say that it cost Sony $350,000 to record the album (I don't buy it, but whatever). Now, let's say that the average sale price of the CD was $15, it cost $3 to produce a single copy of the album in full retail swag, and the RIAA got...I don't know, $10 from the sale of each CD. That's a total of just about $2.9 million. Minus the $350k to make the album, Sony just raked in $2.5 million - on the first day the album was released. Sales may have tapered off, but they're still profiting off that album, two years later. While I do realize that parts of the sale of each copy go to different places, this isn't a case of the RIAA being forced to charge $18 an album. Apple didn't force them to charge $1.29 for popular songs, either (maybe - give Apple's propensity to overcharge for everything, it wouldn't surprise me if they had some say in the new iTunes pricing tiers). They do it to make money, because they know people will keep paying for it.

1) Labels don't set the price of Apple tunes. Apple set the price of Apple tunes. I get $0.70 per track, whether they sell it at $0.69 or $5,000,000.00.

2) Your model above seems to forget that retailers double up. That is, that $15 CD was bought into the shop for $7.50. Now follow that $7.50 back along the chain and remember that the guy who delivered it wants paying, as does the distributor, as does the guy who did the artwork, as does the girl who answers the phone at the mastering house (and in her spare time goes on Internet forums to whine about how expensive CDs are). The list is endless.

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

The entertainment industry as a whole (RIAA, MPAA, movie theatres, cable TV providers, professional sports, etc) is extremely lucrative. It's one damn big reason why people are so desperate to get into entertainment - it's easy money, given how much you get for the level of work required.

No. We do it for the boobies. And the not having to get up at 6 am.

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

"No" to what?

Pretty much everything you're saying.

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Not really. I like owning stuff. I'd love to live off the royalties of some crappy rock album from 1972. I also, unfortunately, understand the concept of supply and demand.

It would appear that you don't. If demand is still there, then supply will generally fill demand and that "crappy album" will continue to earn money.

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

The music industry as a whole is finding themselves less popular than they used to be, and it's not just because of how they treat their entire customer base as criminals (Sony rootkit debacle, anyone?). It's because they put out crappy music. Aside from the aforementioned Avril Lavigne album, all my favorite albums are old.

Wait. You just called the old stuff "crappy rock albums from 1972". And I'm sorry, but anyone who likes Avril's music is in no position to say what's crap and what isn't.

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

I don't have the faintest idea who's on the top 40 list right now, because popular music sucks balls for the most part. It's poorly done and completely contrived.

Says an Avril Lavigne fan.

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

You're talking as a small-time guy. You really think the RIAA is paying the same prices you are for the recording equipment?

No, I know they're paying more for it.
As a "small time" guy, I can run deals which they can't even dream about because I don't need the corporate-level support and don't need to buy all my crap from the same place. Case in point: AKG C1000S microphone (a bog standard low-level bit of kit - everyone has one or more.). £89 where I get mine from. £176 where the majors go shopping. I don't need the corporate support because I can build a personal relationship with the seller. They need the corporate support. Thus, I get it cheaper.

---
Here's a post gleaned off another forum:

Zukan is dead on in his earlier post - it's not just the big corporates (whatever your view of them) who suffer, it's the one-man jobs like Zuke and myself and countless others who suffer, the people for whom a sale dictates whether you can do the weekly shop or not, pay your mortgage or not. People think it's funny 'sticking it the the man'. Well one 'man' I know - a good friend - invested many tens of thousands of dollars in a new sample library. It involved hiring musicians, engineers, venues, studios, digital audio specialists, sample editors and programmers, software programmers, etc.. He had to re-mortgage his house but he believed in the project and believed musicians would benefit from it. I worked on it and it was a fabulous and unique library. And it was released to much acclaim. And a week later it was available on a torrent and sales just dried up. He had to fire staff and nearly lost his house and business, nearly lost his entire life in fact and all he had worked for just because some f'cking [ ****** ] for brains in his bedroom thought it was a hoot to 'stick it to the man'.

Here's another (which is responding to someone whining about the RIAA being evil, like you've just done):

Absolute rubbish. At least half of the material that is on Pirate Bay comes from independent creators, from music to games to movies. Just because you see Justin Timberlake up there or the latest Roland Emmerich blockbuster doesn't mean you can ignore the other 100,000 files containing all sorts of obscure music, indie movies, software sold by 1-person outfits. Just about everything I've ever released is up there, kindly packaged into 'discography' flacs to make it easy for individuals to never once have to buy a single CD or Vinyl copy, I'm on an independent label that has DRM free digital sales including FLAC. Do you think we deserve to get ripped off too?

I could almost handle this affair if it weren't for the brazen and smug mockery of the Pirate Bay owners, with the teasing and poking fun that shows up on their website. It's just as well for them that they are geographically isolated, I suspect that if their address was in London and publicly known they'd have had a few 'visits' by now. Anyway a year in prison with a few dangerous men who aren't flimsy 8 stone computer nerds should give them a little perspective I hope.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak 

Copyright infringement isn't theft.

That's OK. Whacking copyright infringers in the face with a sledgehammer isn't assault either.

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by iMOTOR 

steal |stēl|
verb ( past stole |stōl|; past part. stolen |ˈstōlən|)
1 [ trans. ] take (another person's property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it : thieves stole her bicycle | [ intrans. ] she was found guilty of stealing from her employers | [as adj. ] ( stolen) stolen goods.
• dishonestly pass off (another person's ideas) as one's own : accusations that one group had stolen ideas from the other were soon flying.

If done without permission, then yes.



It is most definitely theft, at least in the legal sense.

There are different kinds of IP theft, for example, if an illustrator accuses a company of using her original artwork, a civil court would have to decide if the company is guilty of copyright infringement and also what damages they owe. In this case, taking for free what would otherwise be sold is considered a criminal act.

Except, when people are distributing music and movies across the Internet without permission, they aren't trying to pass that work off as their own. The ideas are not being stolen. They're being distributed without permission.

[iMOTOR]

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak 

they aren't trying to pass that work off as their own.

I never said they were, I was just giving an example. Some IP theft is litigated as a civil matter, and sometimes it’s treated as a crime. But even if someone does not go to jail, if they’re found guilty of copyright infringement, they’re basically stealing.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

No, it isn't. According to the New York Times, Atlantic records (just one of the members of the RIAA) posted profits of $10.1 billion in 2008.

Woah, Nelly - you might want to read that article again after you've had your morning coffee.

That's 10.1 billion in SALES, not profits.

And that's THE ENTIRE ****ING INDUSTRY, not just Atlantic:

Originally Posted by TFA

With the milestone comes a sobering reality already familiar to newspapers and television producers. While digital delivery is becoming a bigger slice of the pie, the overall pie is shrinking fast. Analysts at Forrester Research estimate that music sales in the United States will decline to $9.2 billion in 2013, from $10.1 billion this year

Also, the article states that Warner Music Group (one of the big four) announced a 4th-quarter net profit of WHOPPING SIX MILLION DOLLARS. (This, again, one of the biggest record companies on the planet.)

Rather changes your point, doesn't it?

[moep]

Originally Posted by sek929 

Futile, the internet nerds will always win.

TBP can be dismantled today and something else will fill it's void by weeks end. Masturbation.

+++ (see suprnova and many other examples)

And what I personally find quite amusing is that the enormous media coverage around this spectrial is just causing more and more people to jump on the BT train and thus seems to backfire on the *AA.

I’ve had ~5 friends come to me in the past week, asking how to get started with TPB. (just because I’m the go-to computer guy for them)
Most of them paid for their music on iTunes… up to that day where TPB was spoon-fed to them by the media.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by iMOTOR 

It is most definitely theft, at least in the legal sense.

That's just plain backwards. You might say they're the same in a moral sense or in their consequences or something else like that, but it's a fact they are definitely different crimes from a legal perspective. That's why there are specific copyright laws — because it's not covered under the laws about theft.

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by iMOTOR 

It is most definitely theft, at least in the legal sense.

Especially in the legal sense, it's not theft. Nobody can steal ideas like one can steal cars, diamonds or cash. The crime is copyright infringement in case of music, for instance, or a violation of patents. But not theft.

Originally Posted by iMOTOR 

There are different kinds of IP theft, for example, if an illustrator accuses a company of using her original artwork, a civil court would have to decide if the company is guilty of copyright infringement and also what damages they owe. In this case, taking for free what would otherwise be sold is considered a criminal act.

I added emphasis to the key point: the crime is copyright infringement and not theft. If you're publicly playing a CD you've bought without paying your dues, it's also an infringement, even though you've `paid for the CD.' You don't own the music, you own the CD.

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

Also, the article states that Warner Music Group (one of the big four) announced a 4th-quarter net profit of WHOPPING SIX MILLION DOLLARS. (This, again, one of the biggest record companies on the planet.)

Rather changes your point, doesn't it?

Totally changes the point. Now it sounds like a failing business model to me.

[Andy8]

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak 

Now it sounds like a failing business model to me.

Exactly. It is a sunset business.

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by iMOTOR 

But even if someone does not go to jail, if they’re found guilty of copyright infringement, they’re basically stealing.

That's certainly how content owners *want* us to perceive the issue, but the reality is far different. There is no loss of property when someone distributes a song or movie across the Internet. There may be a perceived loss of revenue, but that isn't theft, especially if the people distributing aren't profiting from that distribution (as is the case for most P2P distribution).

Further, one might argue that the willingness of so many ordinary people (ie: *not* hardened criminals) to download a movie or song through P2P rather than pay for it from a store signals a change in perception of the value of this content.

For my part as a consumer, it's always angered me how the entertainment industry tries to control how I use their content.
- back when CD's were the primary form of distribution, if there was only one song on an album that I felt was worth purchasing, my only options were to either buy the whole album or buy the single for over half the price of the album (assuming the record company even bothered to put that song out as a single). When the recording companies tried to stop iTunes from selling songs individually, their goal became clear: put effort in to producing one or two good songs to sell a whole album of low effort/mediocre songs rather than let consumers purchase just the good songs.

- content owners want it to be illegal for me to back up my content. Not illegal to distribute unauthorized copies, but illegal to make backups in case the original is damaged.

- TV content owners don't want me to watch TV when it's convenient for me. They'd much rather try to force me to watch their shows when *they* want me to watch the shows, trying to use shows I want to watch as a way to get me to watch lower effort/quality shows that I have no interest in.

That so many people are getting their content from P2P sources tells me that they are frustrated with how un-consumer-friendly the content owners are.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak 

That so many people are getting their content from P2P sources tells me that they are frustrated with how un-consumer-friendly the content owners are.

Either that, or they just want to get stuff without paying for it.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak 

That so many people are getting their content from P2P sources tells me that they are frustrated with how un-consumer-friendly the content owners are.

This is the huge red-letter point that I wish every media exec would have plastered across their wall. You make money by making customers happy. You lose money by pissing them off. Because they've been lucky until now, they think they should be able to mistreat people and still have those people be loyal customers.

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Either that, or they just want to get stuff without paying for it.

Do you think that any of the major recording labels are trying to think of new ways to make their customers happy? 'Cause, it seems to me that they're just trying to think of ways to keep customers content with the drivel they've become accustomed to producing and the archaic distribution models they use to keep their pockets full of cash.

P2P distribution of content shouldn't be seen as a threat. It should be viewed as an opportunity.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak 

P2P distribution of content shouldn't be seen as a threat. It should be viewed as an opportunity.

So at what point does the customer enter their credit card details in this utopian P2P model?

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

So at what point does the customer enter their credit card details in this utopian P2P model?

That's for the makers of content to figure out. If *I* figured it out, I certainly wouldn't be posting it in a web forum. I'd be developing my business plan.

Television producers vehemently opposed the existence of VCRs, thinking that they would lead to illegitimate distribution of their content. But, video cassette and, later, DVD sales of their product became HUGE sources of revenue.

Music makers had to be dragged by Apple into selling content online. And now?

New technologies and ideas are *always* disruptive at first.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak 

That's for the makers of content to figure out.

We've done that. You enter your credit card details here.

It's no good telling us to embrace P2P if nobody has any clue how to move P2P from "free" to "content providers actually eat that week".

[shifuimam]

[/snip]

Sorry. I got bored.

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

We've done that. You enter your credit card details here.

It's no good telling us to embrace P2P if nobody has any clue how to move P2P from "free" to "content providers actually eat that week".

I'm not telling *you* to embrace P2P. I'm saying that clearly there are things consumers want that P2P offers and that there's a huge opportunity.

And, what consumer want from P2P goes *way* beyond just getting it for free. A large number of people I know download TV shows. They already have cable subscriptions and yet they still download the shows anyways; clearly they aren't just trying to get it for free from P2P since they already pay for it from another source. Why do you suppose they're downloading the shows when they're already paying to get them through their cable subscriptions? They also listen on Last.fm and Pandora to music they've already purchased. And they download from P2P DVD's they've alreayd purchased. I know people who've tried to rent a recently released movie from iTunes, only to find that it wasn't going to be available for rent for another month and then bittorrent it instead. *I* think people want a convenience in their viewing experience that media creators aren't willing to offer.

If I were a media company, I'd be trying to figure out out how to monetize that desire before someone else does.

[Wiskedjak]

You know what I liked best about Napster? It wasn't getting the music for free. When I found someone sharing music I liked, I was able to browse the other stuff *they* liked that I wasn't aware of. I discovered genres I wasn't even aware of that my radio and Much Music experience wouldn't expose me to. I also discovered reams of excellent independent artists who not only didn't mind their music being shared, but *encouraged* it.

Although, it's fairly certain that the major music labels don't want to increase our ability to discover music that they aren't pushing (which is one of the things I think they fear about P2P).

[- - e r i k - -]

What I think is absolutely farking hilarious is Shif's perception that creating music, or even professional sport is easy work for big money.

Wow. Seriously. Wow.

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

What I think is absolutely farking hilarious is Shif's perception that creating music, or even professional sport is easy work for big money.

Wow. Seriously. Wow.

For the money, yes.

These people are not creating new medical or engineering wonders on a daily basis. They are not discovering new laws of physics. In fact, most of them are complete idiots when it comes to academic knowledge or common sense.

I'm aware that creating music, acting, etc, is time-consuming and requires long hours and whatnot.

However, the big guys to whom the RIAA constantly panders (U2, Metallica, Aerosmith, the Stones, every pop artist since 1980, etc), do not have a difficult life. They work long hours, but they are rolling in money and living the high life.

I don't really feel sorry for anyone in the industries of both professional sports and entertainment. Yeah, an NFL player works his ass off while he's still in the league, but he also gets to retire at 40 - and other people do just as much physical work (manual labor, mining, etc etc) and get paid sh!t for it in comparison to the tens of millions the top athletes earn annually in both salaries and endorsements. Musicians are quite the same way. It might suck to be touring all over the globe all year and writing music when you're not touring, but do you really think that they're not getting paid enough for what they do, or that their life is really all that hard?

Try telling that to the rest of us, who can't spend our nights partying and our days doing whatever our highly-paid personal assistants tell us to do.

Music isn't a total cakewalk. I realize that Paris Hilton probably has it easier than <insert name of musician here> when it comes to how much effort she puts in relative to how much her payout is. However, cutting an album a year is pretty damn easy compared to, say, working your ass off at three jobs to make ends meet. If people thought that the entertainment industry was hell on earth, why in the world are there millions of people lining up to audition for American Idol every year?

Just sayin'.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

For the money, yes.

These people are not creating new medical or engineering wonders on a daily basis. They are not discovering new laws of physics. In fact, most of them are complete idiots when it comes to academic knowledge or common sense.

<jaw hits floor>

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

For the money, yes.

You are certifiably insane. Only the top 2% of musicians make more than a comfortable amount of money. Most bands NEVER make a profit and those are just the signed ones. In fact most bands pay to go out and tour to get their music out at all. It's about love for the art. Most musicians have to support their musical careers with a day job.

If you seriously think that music, arts, sports or acting is easy money you are so out of touch with the real world that I can't begin to fathom how you even manage to string a complete sentence together.

Don't kid yourself. There's more to the music industry than Coldplay, Madonna, U2 or *shudder* Avril Lavigne.

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

You are certifiably insane. Only the top 2% of musicians make more than a comfortable amount of money..

but, it's the content owners for those 2% that are the ones complaining about music being shared over the Internet. the other 98% would probably *love* to have their music reach a level of popularity that it gets widely shared over the Internet.

[CharlesS]

The other 98% has to worry about not being able to make music anymore if their stuff gets widely shared over the Internet. They've got a small enough audience already that if what audience they have pirates their music instead of buying it, they're making almost no money.

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

The other 98% has to worry about not being able to make music anymore if their stuff gets widely shared over the Internet. They've got a small enough audience already that if what audience they have pirates their music instead of buying it, they're making almost no money.

There are a number of indie musicians who've figured out that encouraging people to share their music is an excellent way to promoted themselves. I wholeheartedly support these artists by purchasing their albums and sharing them with anyone who will listen.

http://www.fixtonline.com/freedownloads.html
http://www.sigur-ros.co.uk/media/
http://urlyd.com/releases/

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

The other 98% has to worry about not being able to make music anymore if their stuff gets widely shared over the Internet. They've got a small enough audience already that if what audience they have pirates their music instead of buying it, they're making almost no money.

That's backwards. At that stage in the game, they need publicity more than anything else. If their music gets widely shared over the Internet, they gain fans — and even 1% of a million fans buying your stuff is way better than 100% of 200 fans buying it.

You know how many bands I've become a fan of after buying their album? Zero. By this "people getting it for free = the end" logic, radio should have killed the music industry decades ago.

Die-hard fans were legally gray long before the Internet came along, anyway. Tape-trading and bootlegs and things like that have been around for a very long time.

[CharlesS]

Uh huh. And how exactly is "popularity" on P2P networks supposed to pay the bills?

Radio isn't analogous at all. You can't systematically download every one of a musician's works over radio - all you can do is listen to what the station decides to play at a particular time - to give you a sampling. Sure, you can use P2P networks to sample someone's works and then buy the album later... but I'd frankly be shocked if anyone actually did this, especially at the rate that P2P defenders are always claiming on the Internet. If you already are downloading stuff on a P2P site, there's frankly little point leaving it to go buy an album when you could just keep downloading the whole thing right there. And of course the defenders of P2P are usually the same people proclaiming that the CD is dead anyway, which makes me skeptical that they are going to run out and buy the CD after pirating a track.

Want to sample music? Services like iTunes and Amazon allow you to sample music just fine. You can easily listen to one track for $1 (or sometimes $1.30, now). That's not a big investment. And before you do that, you can listen to thirty seconds of the track for free.

[Shaddim]

I have no sympathy for TPB guys, they've been poking that hornet's nest for a long time.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

I don't really feel sorry for anyone in the industries of both professional sports and entertainment. Yeah, an NFL player works his ass off while he's still in the league, but he also gets to retire at 40 - and other people do just as much physical work (manual labor, mining, etc etc) and get paid sh!t for it in comparison to the tens of millions the top athletes earn annually in both salaries and endorsements. Musicians are quite the same way.

Got news for ya hun. You're a communist, not a conservative.

The only people I've heard come out with what you've just come out with (and don't think for a second that it's an original thought) usually have a poster of Che on their wall.

Must be the educational institution you work in rubbing off on you.

Just sayin'.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

By this "people getting it for free = the end" logic, radio should have killed the music industry decades ago.

You realise that here, at least, the artiste gets paid every time his stuff is played on the radio? Used to be about $150 per tune, per play (last time I looked).

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

You realise that here, at least, the artiste gets paid every time his stuff is played on the radio? Used to be about $150 per tune, per play (last time I looked).

WTF? Performing right mechanical royalties here are minuscule, not even near $150 (It varies from media to media of course).

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Uh huh. And how exactly is "popularity" on P2P networks supposed to pay the bills?

Popularity in general. Most singers start off doing things for free and giving out free demos. In the early stages of your career, you should be less concerned about people stealing your work (they don't want to) and more worried about getting people to listen to it (even getting them to listen for free is a challenge!). If you could have half the world download your music for free and they'd recommend it to the other half of the world, you would be the richest musician in history.

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Sure, you can use P2P networks to sample someone's works and then buy the album later... but I'd frankly be shocked if anyone actually did this, especially at the rate that P2P defenders are always claiming on the Internet.

It happens. Just yesterday, I bought several tracks after hearing those songs OMG ILLEGALLY UPLOADED on YouTube. Heck, one of my favorite artists is one I would never have heard of if it weren't for filesharing. I downloaded some of her songs once on a lark and it was like, "Hey, I really like this chick. Let's buy this stuff." I know several people who have done similar things.

Further proof: Trent Reznor intentionally offers his latest album as a free download on his Web site. Do you think he's not making money? Has he suddenly taken a vow of poverty? Maybe downloads don't do the damage P2P opponents are always claiming on the Internet.

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Want to sample music? Services like iTunes and Amazon allow you to sample music just fine. You can easily listen to one track for $1 (or sometimes $1.30, now). That's not a big investment.

Sweet, only $12 to sample an album. Oh, wait, that's more than it costs to buy it. Fail. (Actually, I like iTunes, but if you're buying the song, it's not a freakin' sample.)

Yes, there are hardcore filesharers who will never buy anything. But you know what? They don't matter. They will never buy anything. They're not your customers, and they're not everybody. Screw them and make something people want to buy and people will buy it. That's why the iTunes Music Store succeeded: It offered a superior option to illegal downloading.

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

Yes, there are hardcore filesharers who will never buy anything. But you know what? They don't matter. They will never buy anything. They're not your customers, and they're not everybody. Screw them and make something people want to buy and people will buy it. That's why the iTunes Music Store succeeded: It offered a superior option to illegal downloading.

Exactly.

Piracy will become a non-issue once there is a superior legal option. Guess what? Most people WANT to be legal.

Offer a less restrictive (geographical licensing restriction should be the first to go in a connected globalised world), high quality legal alternative and watch the shift change. Right now piracy offers a more convenient, higher quality solution. It's not that people actually want to steal content. Those people are a minority that will never go away, and trying to change them is futile.

As futile as this "victory" over the Pirate Bay founders.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

WTF? Performing right mechanical royalties here are minuscule, not even near $150 (It varies from media to media of course).

Bear in mind that last time I looked it was at least ten years ago. $150 per radio play, $600 per TV play. It could all have changed since then, of course - I haven't really been paying attention to that side of things.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

Further proof: Trent Reznor intentionally offers his latest album as a free download on his Web site. Do you think he's not making money? Has he suddenly taken a vow of poverty? Maybe downloads don't do the damage P2P opponents are always claiming on the Internet.

Trent approaches bankruptcy about once every two years. Just because you think he's taking baths in $100 bills doesn't mean he actually is.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

PIt happens. Just yesterday, I bought several tracks after hearing those songs OMG ILLEGALLY UPLOADED on YouTube. Heck, one of my favorite artists is one I would never have heard of if it weren't for filesharing. I downloaded some of her songs once on a lark and it was like, "Hey, I really like this chick. Let's buy this stuff." I know several people who have done similar things.

An anecdotal example. Great. Counter that with the anecdotal example Doofy posted earlier in the thread about the guy who lost his shirt as soon as his stuff showed up on a torrent.

Further proof: Trent Reznor intentionally offers his latest album as a free download on his Web site. Do you think he's not making money? Has he suddenly taken a vow of poverty? Maybe downloads don't do the damage P2P opponents are always claiming on the Internet.

Great, another anecdotal example. Counter that with Radiohead: they tried offering an album for download with payment being optional. It didn't last very long before they yanked it...

Sweet, only $12 to sample an album. Oh, wait, that's more than it costs to buy it. Fail. (Actually, I like iTunes, but if you're buying the song, it's not a freakin' sample.)

Oh, for crying out loud. Downloading the entire album isn't a sample, how could it be? You're downloading the entire album. How is that a sample? The dictionary definition of "sample" is "a small part or quantity intended to show what the whole is like." An individual track (or a bunch of free 30-second... samples... of the various tracks in the album) is a sample of the album. The whole damn thing in complete, unabridged form is not.

Who ever buys an album after they've already downloaded the whole freaking thing? What incentive is there to do that? You've already got the whole damn album. Why would you then buy it? Out of guilt for having ripped off the record label, which your side is always decrying as the incarnation of Ultimate Evil™? Color me skeptical.

[Kerrigan]

I can tell that none of you pro-piracy people have degrees in liberal arts...

How do I know this? Simple: plagiarism committees. Personally, I have a history degree, but I know that most other liberal arts areas are subject to the same plagiarism "awareness" programs that are used to reinforce a student's (or TA's, or professor's) understanding of what constitutes intellectual theft.

In academia, intellectual property rights are paramount. A student who takes another person's words, ideas, research, etc., and uses them improperly for his own benefit has crossed ethical boundaries as well as legal boundaries in many cases.

One learns quite quickly to respect the intellectual property of others, and not to seek to benefit improperly from it. It is the equivalent of theft. And when you get caught, you can't use the cliche arguments that people are using in this thread: "Oh, well the general quality of the research I stole from was poor, so I didn't need to pay proper attribution," or "It was simply too inconvenient for me to correctly give credit," etc. These are not loopholes to the legal and ethical regulations. Nor are they loopholes when applied to other forms of intellectual property. If you want to use it, you have to give credit where it is due.

Or, to use a more straightforward comparison, take books for example. Imagine, in a weird parallel world, people actively read books and have hundreds of books stored on their computer that they paid for. Then, suddenly, people start pirating, and the publishing industry loses billions of dollars in lost revenue. Would you still use the same arguments (that intellectual property laws are all a conspiracy, that popular books are too low-brow and thus no books deserve payment except for a select few, etc)? I would hope not.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

An anecdotal example. Great. Counter that with the anecdotal example Doofy posted earlier in the thread about the guy who lost his shirt as soon as his stuff showed up on a torrent.

You can't counter it with that. Doofy's anecdote had nothing to do with what I was just talking about.

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Great, another anecdotal example. Counter that with Radiohead: they tried offering an album for download with payment being optional. It didn't last very long before they yanked it...

Bah, you can complain about "anecdotal examples" when you have something better to present. IIRC, Radiohead's deal lasted several months, until the special edition box set it was meant to promote showed up.

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Oh, for crying out loud. Downloading the entire album isn't a sample, how could it be?

Hearing the whole thing once is a sample of what the experience of owning it is like. I'm not being glib or argumentative — that's honestly how I look at it. I understand why iTMS does the 30-second sample thing, but it's really useless to me. Most of the time, after hearing whatever 30-second stretch of music Apple's sample-selecting retarded monkey chose, I have absolutely no idea whether I'll like the whole thing or not. Sometimes I'll go ahead and download it — more often I'll write them off and they'll get nothing.

I kind of like the way Klicktrack does it, where they have a player that will play as much of the song as you like in 30-second increments. That gives a good feel for it without giving away the farm.

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Who ever buys an album after they've already downloaded the whole freaking thing? What incentive is there to do that? You've already got the whole damn album. Why would you then buy it? Out of guilt for having ripped off the record label, which your side is always decrying as the incarnation of Ultimate Evil™? Color me skeptical.

"My side"? Do I look like I'm made out of straw? I'm arguing my opinion. Other people are welcome to their own.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

Trent approaches bankruptcy about once every two years. Just because you think he's taking baths in $100 bills doesn't mean he actually is.

I admit I'm not privy to Trent's pocketbook. I know he's still making music, which ain't cheap, and he's not currently busing tables for extra cash (something a good percentage of musicians can't say), so I think his business model must not be dead just yet. What am I missing?