while I can make a person switch from explorer to firefox easily, its just not the same for artists. If I enjoy listening to metallica, I just can't stop that and listen to some free garage band, even if they cover metallica songs. The free software methord of replacement just would not work here. What we really need is a proper pricing of music albums. I mean, an album costs 30 $, even though it was made on a 50 million $ budget and a billion was already earned off the album. People become artists and authors to earn a lifetime living off their works, instead of regularly creating more works. This is where the problem lies.

the artists are not greedy, they just want the maximum out of what they produce so that they can have a lazy and easy lifestyle.

RIAA infact cannot come to the picture at all. It is related to the artists. Instead of an artist hiering someone to record his songs, as one would think must be happening, it is the other way round.

and you can't talk about free music, because if you think form the point of view of a person whose life long dream has been to produce an album, and he has no other talents, he just would not want to let that effort go in vain. Do you realise, that for every one album produced, ten get rjected?

It all comes down to this sad statement: "Got bucks? live. Poor? die." in a capitalistic society, no social intersts can hold good. This is the harsh truth.

i LIKE this part...
you said it right...
They all want to be breast-fed by everyone...

I see the "album" format dying really soon... it is dying already...
I myself have not listened or acquired an "entire" 12-track album in a _LONG_ time.
Internet gave the choice to not swallow the fillers...
In a few years only the major bands will stick to the album format - because it will simply become unviable finacially to produce an album for what the music consumers are being shaped for - the singles market. The rest of the artists will release singles each 2 years or so.

I think that would be very sad indeed. I do like a few artists who really are singles bands; where you aren't missing out on much if you just pick up their singles or 'best of' compilations, but most of them have made albums that are more than just collections of filler around a few worthwhile tracks.

I do stick my favourite tracks on my MP3 player and play it on random when on the move, but at home I mainly listen to complete albums, even when they're ripped to my PC. The very best experiences I've had listening to music have been when playing full albums all the way through. The best bands can craft an album where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and even 'filler' tracks add to the experience of listening to the album. We'd have lost a lot of great music if those bands had just recorded a few tracks and thrown away the rest.

businesses such as microsoft and major member labels of the RIAA have relied for years on the barriers to entry in these industries to maintain large market share and high profit margins. since this is a thread mainly about music and copyright infringement, i'll stick to the problem with the music industry, but these arguments really apply to both.

since the recorded music industry took off in the 1920's and 1930's, record companies have relied on the difficulties of recording, producing, and distributing records to create an oligopolistic marketplace. in this environment, a few large companies can prosper at the expense of the consumer by colluding to set market prices above a stable and reasonable level. the size of these companies necessitates this kind of price inflation, because the only motivation is profit for all. in a large firm like a major record label, there is tremendous administrative overhead involved. all of the employees need to be paid, and everyone involved in the record industry (barring musicians) expects large returns on a small amount of work.

the simple fact of the matter is that digital media and widespread content distribution via the internet have created points of easy entry into both the software and music industries. for the first time in history, it is easy for startup firms and even individuals to enter the industry and actually compete. the market structure of the music industry is changing, and the large recording labels are wary of what this means. with more competition, profit margins will fall as the market prices adjust to a new equilibrium point. i'll make an example.

when the RIAA and member labels began suing individuals for copyright infringement, i immediately began boycotting their music, even if this meant not buying the cd's of bands that i like. since 2003, all of my music purchases have been from independent labels, and as often as possible, i buy directly from the artist from merch tables at shows. this means that i pay between $8 and $12 for a cd, on average. this seems like a reasonable price to me, taking into account the time and money spent writing the music, recording it, mastering it, designing album art, and printing cd's. a price of $8 to $12 is just about enough to break even and even make some profit from producing an album. i'm talking about economic profit here, too. that takes into account all expenses, including compensation for the artists and all other parties involved. anything past breaking even is extra money.

so let's take a look at what this means for the recording industry as a whole. artists can expect to receive a larger portion of the revenue from album sales by recording independently or signing to a small label, due to the decreased overhead incurred. not only that, but independent artists, working harder to produce a high-quality product, are beginning to win more of the market share, because people recognize their works as superior. in the growing independent music community, there is an air of superiority and much disdain for mainstream commercial music. this isn't to say that all independent music is better, or that all mainstream music is bad, but there is a general trend that is increasing here. as new artists begin to make a living from music, it will be increasingly difficult for any particular artists to dominate the industry. pop stars should and i hope will become a thing of the past. music is just like any other art; good art comes from the desire to create, not from a desire for profit.

that being said, some may interpret my words to mean that i think musicians should not be compensated for their work. this is not the case.

yes, i think it's possible to make a living as a musician.
no, i don't think that musicians should be compensated more than myself or any other blue or white collar worker are for their labor.

i am a software developer, and i work 45 hours per week. i think that my salary is very reasonable. i see no reason for anyone to expect that they should be able to produce one album in a year and earn any more than i do from that. in fact, i don't think it's valid for someone to expect to earn that much just from producing an album. being a musician should be a full-time job just like any other. that means touring and playing plenty of local shows when not on the road. this hearkens back to when music was predominately performed live, such as in the 1920's when jazz bands were playing at dance clubs on a nightly basis.

the economic structure of the music industry is going to move toward a purely competitive market, and there's nothing that will stop this. as the major labels begin to see their profits wane in the light of market adjustments, they are going to engage in some violent death throes.

the reality is that the industry is not worried about profits lost to piracy. the RIAA wrongfully assumes that squashing the file sharing community will maintain the importance of radio (payola and top 40) in music distribution and therefore prevent the flood of new entries to the industry from evening the playing field. they are worried about losing control of the dissemination of music to the masses. there is no way to stop the flow of information over the internet short of completely disabling it, though, and the RIAA does not have the power to do this. within the next 5-10 years, it will become clear that these frivolous lawsuits have no effect on file sharing, and that file sharing is not the problem. after all, people who are seriously involved in file sharing aren't even sharing content from major labels, they are sharing hard to find media from obscure sources, with the hope of spreading it to a wider audience.

there will be new competition, and there will be a redistribution of wealth and capital in the music industry. those affected will be the major labels, not the artists. there is no way to stop it now.

As for claiming a polarity and putting everyone into either camp A or camp B:

People who are in neither camp and who primarily care about truth and evolution, are aware, that even if filesharers which distribute RIAA materiel illegaly (wrongly called "pirates") are not the solution, or are maybe not acting consistently, they are to some extend the "messenger" of the problem and occuring change. They (unconsciously and consciously) act a bit like "useful exploiters".... they abuse a problem, and that way make it impossible to ignore it further. And in that aspect, i do support them, even if i am not part of them.

- Lyx

That's an easy question: Because I want just one track that I can play anywhere I want - my cell phone, my car stereo, my MP3 player, my Sonos system, etc.

eMusic, et al, only sell obscure bands most people don't want. iTunes only sells DRM'ed music you have to play on an iPod or iTunes-equipped PC, and no one in their right mind pays $15 for a CD to get just one song.

I'll support the RIAA's "moral" rights in these matters when they give us a reasonable, practical way to acquire the music we want legally.






And how does that genius propose that people who have home music distribution systems like Sonos play music. It first has to be converted to a digital form that can be stored on disk.

The sheer insanity of the music industry ensures that millions of people around the world will continue to seek ways to resist them. I've never seen any industry with their head up their @$$ so completely as the record industry.






I don't think so. I've made it clear many times that I'm perfectly willing to pay a reasonable per-track fee but I'm not willing to pay the cost of a whole CD to get one or two songs. The music industry's only alswer to that is to offer DRM'ed music that can only be played on very proprietary platforms, NONE of which are my primary music-playing platforms.

Again, I was on about the discussion in the media - not my own views.

FWIW i'm the same as you - I don't run Windows at home, and next week I move to a job with a major international company who don't use Windows at all apart from on a few desktops.

Agreed on the rest though. I've just bought a new stereo for my car - from Sony of all companies - that plays unencrypted m4a files from a memory stick. It's great, but it is something that should have been available years ago.

You have made pretty interesting points, but as a musician, I cannot help but react to that one.

Defining what the job of a music artist should be is in my opinion a little more difficult than you seem to imply.

An album is not a trivial thing to produce, and it takes months and sometimes more to come up with a final product. In other words, it is a full-time job. Putting the accent on the "performing" aspect as being the true essence of being a music artist is extremely restrictive.

The first reason why is that being an artist does not de facto imply being a performer. Writing then recording music and performing it to an audience are two very different things. An artist is not half an artist because he or she is only a composer or only a performer. It would be like saying that a movie director is not an artist because he or she does not perform as an actor in plays at local theaters.

The second reason is that an album is a work of art in itself and it is valuable as such. It is not only some kind of vague promotional material made to bring people to concerts. I am pretty sure that there are albums that are cherished for what they are, regardless of the quality of the artist or the band as live performers. There are also probably albums that one loves made by artists that noone will never hear live anymore(because the artists are dead, or the band has split, etc...). In that case, is it not legitimate that the said albums generate the vast majority of those artists' revenue?

The third reason is that performing live is not as easy as wanting it. It is easier when you are signed to major label that has marketed your album properly, but it can definitely be complicated for independant or more "underground" bands. Several venues ask the bands to sign a check to them as an insurance in case it does not end up filling the venue enough. Many others will keep the money from the tickets and will only let you get free drinks and set up a table at the entrance to sell your CDs.

The final reason is that in our globalized world, it is much easier for an artist to reach its potential audience by releasing a CD(or other kinds of media) than betting on being able to attract a reasonably sized crowd of people to local venue. It is particularly true for artists evolving in rather niche genres or genres that are not necessarily adapted to typical venues:ie ambient music and other "quiet music genres". It is also important to realize that not all music performances are equally easy to market as the typical pop-rock combo. In the end it is always pretty much the same genres that make it to the big venues. It is of course thankfully not set in stone and things are constantly changing, but at an extremely slow pace and in the meantime if some artists cannot rely on their albums to generate revenue then they are pretty much condemned to make no revenue at all.

The reason why the "performing live" argument comes out so often is because it is indeed true that a lot of artists, - and it is particularly true of major artists - make most of their money out of their gigs and only "pocket money" out of their record sales. This state of things is the way it is not because it is natural, but because of the business model the music industry has seen as being the most profitable one.

I'm not sure what your conclusion from all this is.

I just returned from a chamber music weekend - my wife is an amateur chamber pianist and I just tag along.

The teachers were all professional chamber musicians. What does that mean? It means that they perform as part of chamber music ensembles, worldwide. Most top musicians play in more than one ensemble - for example we had musicians this weekend who play in both the Muir String Quartet and the Triple Helix Piano trio. They ALSO teach at music schools like Boston University and New England Conservatory. They also take private teaching gigs and do weekend music coaching and master classes. Oh, and by the way, they sell a few CD's. Also note that the music they make is NOT individual songs because chamber pieces are typically 3-6 movements, maybe 10 minutes per movement.

Now, chamber music is not exactly a major, mainstream genre, but it has a definite worldwide following. If you're really good and hard-working you can make an adequate living from it, and gain a modest degree of fame and respect.

And I think this model will increasingly be the model for most music, going forward.

My point is that one should be wary of not overlooking the value of albums as works of art per se (instead of treating them as promotion material for upcoming live performances) and as such have a value in themselves. It does not mean that I approve the policy of the RIAA in any way, quite the contrary. Major labels are responsible for the fact that even decently selling artists cannot make money from the record sales.

I have jumped on this "artists should make most of their income playing live" (and give away their music for free) thing because I have heard this argument very often, especially from Creative Commons advocates when promoting their so-called "alternative to copyright"(sic)". I do not agree with this rather exclusive vision of what the job of an artist should consist in and certainly not with the automaticity of its economic and practical feasability.

If some artists are good entrepreneurs with the required skills to be composers, performers, teachers, product designers and whatnot, then it is all to their honor. I still do not see why it implies that all artists should be able to do that if they want to survive.

I am not sure I am able to convey my point correctly, but I would happily try to elaborate further discussing the question with you.

Whats to stop independent bands putting up a group of songs on the internet and calling it an "album?" That is how the majority artists group their work. As far as a physical CD as an album being distributed, time will tell. So I don't see albums dying, there are a lot of us out here still who collect and want the whole album from artists we enjoy.

No one is questioning whether albums have unique value - but whether they have enough value to sustain a career is another matter. There's a huge difference between artistic merit and economic value. I would suggest poetry as a model for this problem. Poems have definite, unique value, as do whole books of poetry. But there are very, very few poets who make a living at writing poems - even major poets such as former poet laureates (e.g., Robert Pinsky or Billy Collins) still have day-jobs as teachers.



I don't think it's a question of "should" (emphasis, mine, above). What I think many of us are saying is that this is a model that actually works in today's world for many artists: some combination of performance, teaching, and music (CD or online) sales, with none of them being the dominant source of income, and each one reinforcing the other. We say this in light of the obvious fact that the old model of big record companies exploiting both the artist and the listener is evaporating faster than parking lot snow on a Memorial Day weekend.

Obviously you're free to propose some alternative, but I just can't imagine what it would be today. I can tell you this - I buy hundreds of CD's a year (to rip to my HD to play on Sonos and my portable MP3 players). And almost all of them are used. The only new CD's I've bought in the last few years were bought directly from the musicians at concerts, and these were all jazz, folk, or classical CD's on really minor labels that most people have never heard of. So the major labels (and artists) aren't making a penny on the CD's I buy. (and yes, I save all my CD's in big boxes in case the "RIAA Police" pay me a visit). I feel bad that the artists aren't making any money off my enjoyment of their music but their industry isn't giving me a practical alternative and what I'm doing is perfectly legal.

God, I hate the metaphor "piracy is stealing". Stealing is when you stab someone and jab their wallet. Then the victim crawls into a hospital (he can't get a taxi because you stole his money) and is denied treatment because you also stole their insurance certificate. The victim bleeds to death on the hospital lobby.

That's stealing.

Or when you steal someone's car and the car-owner cannot go to work the next morning. Suppose the car-owner already had a very poor employee/employer relationship and gets fired because of this incident. The car-owner loses his house, family and commits a suicide.

That's stealing.

Make a few mouse clicks causing some voltage patterns to go through a bunch of routers and PCs around the world resulting to a change in the magnetic field of your hard drive so that it now contains a binary blob called "Metallica - Enter Sandman.mp3".

That's not stealing.

But on the other hand it's not completely valid to say that downloading a song is similar to taking a photograph of something. Someone is actually losing money in the process.

Perhaps a better analogy for a pirate instead of a thief would be a -- parasite. A parasite, such as a mosquito, sucks a tiny drop of blood from somebody. The victim becomes slightly irritated of the loss, but is essentially unharmed. But if a large enough number of mosquitoes draw blood, the victim will die (this could actually happen in Finland's Lapland during summer).

So what pirates are doing does hurt the originator of the work, but in such a small way that it is, for most practical purposes, meaningless. But when enough number of people pirate a work, it becomes unfeasible for the artist to continue doing the whole thing anymore (assuming the artist only does it for the money, as 99% of modern artists do). So we lose the artist permanently and not even paying customers can get a piece of his work anymore. In this case piracy actually hurt everyone, including the paying customers.

The only way pirates can copy someone's work is because enough number of people pay for the work in the first place. Pirates can get it for free because someone else supports the system. So, essentially, pirates are being parasites.

But not thieves. Thieves stab, kill and destroy lives. Parasites can do that too, but only in extreme cases.

Yes it is.

Stealing is taking something you don't have a legal right to. The means by which you do this - knives, mouse-clicks - are totally irrelevant. What if I made "a few mouse clicks causing some voltage patterns to go through a bunch of routers and PCs " to transfer some money from your bank account into mine?

From Merriam Webster:

1 a : to take or appropriate without right or leave and with intent to keep or make use of wrongfully <stole a car> b : to take away by force or unjust means <they've stolen our liberty> c : to take surreptitiously or without permission <steal a kiss>


... where do we get these posters?

he's right. it's not stealing.

it isn't the action itself that is "stealing" but your right to that content.

if the content requires some form of payment to legally use/access/whatever then you NOT doing that is STEALING in our culturally-crossing definition of the term.

now... how unlawful that is and how punishable that is changes from the location on the world you are at and what your laws have established.


later

It doesn't matter if it is "stealing" or not, because possession-rights dont matter much, if the rightsholder doesn't actually possess it.

Rights just like claims, can be made at random. I can claim that i own the universe if i want to. And if i am in the position to it, i can also make that a law. If however, i actually possess the universe, is an entirely different matter.

Similarily, copyright says, that the rightsholder possesses the means to copy a product, across the ENTIRE WORLD. Basically, it claims that he possesses the ability of using any copy-machine across the planet, to duplicate the material. If the act of copying would be related to a significant effort.... so, that it costs a lot of resources..... then this artificial claim would at least have some valid base. Though, one could make the claim that this would still not be total copyright, because does the rightsholder also possess my mind? Does he disallow me to for example imagine a painting which i saw at a friend?

Anyways, it turns out that all this doesnt matter, because we are no longer living in the 19th century. Copying is no effort. Any idiot can do it in a few seconds. Let me repeat that: NO EFFORT across the entire planet and no control and possession of it! So, let me get this straight: Someone claims possession of something, which he does not actually possess - this means: according to the law, people who copy a copyrighted work are stealing. But actually, the rightholders are trying to steal something, which they do not actually possess!
.

This, is the difference between claims, and truth. Copyright is literarily a lie.

- Lyx

No it doesn't What is your source for this bizarre claim?

Since I actually have registered copyrights for various literary and visual works of art I think I'm a little better informed about this than you appear to be.

Copyright makes no claim about the ability or means to copy a work. All it says is that I have the legal right to specify who is allowed to make copies of my work and to what use they may be put.

The capability of my mind to think logically and introspectively.


Hint: Information is worthless unless you also understand what it means.


Ah, you mean like a dogma which lacks any justification? "It is so because i say so"? Wow, thats even better. But you forgot something: if you have zero justification, then your only base for your claim, is the claim itself.... oh dear, now thats a hollow base on which to build a business. The dogma doesn't even consist of air - its like a vacuum :) Since it is just a claim without any substance.... it actually just consists as an errorneous lie in your own head. I mean.... come on.... it is not even an imagination, because you cannot imagine an errorneous claim.... in other words... its even less than a plausible lie! You know what else works like this and is popular? Religion.

However, for exactly those reasons, it isn't what you think it is. It isn't just an unjustified dogma. Maybe you will notice, what is actually meant, when it is said that "you have (OWN) the legal right to specify who is allowed to make copyies", if you take a slightly closer look.

- Lyx

You're obviously not one to let facts get in the way of a good fantasy.

Next time you find yourself standing before a judge we'll see how well your "logical and introspective mind" gets you out of trouble. Good luck, son.

There's a semantic problem here, I think. The rights holder has the right to PERMIT (or not) copying of the work (usually persuant to some particular payment, but not always).

The rights holder can not physically stop someone from copying something in most cases, they can only recover when it happens.

Furthermore, different countries have different "fair use" (or not) guidelines, and apply different rules to what can and can not be copyrighted. Some countries recognize external copyright, some apply some checks, a few effectively ignore foreign copyright.

I report what I know, not what should be.

As much as I enjoy these philosophical banters, the fact remains that in the digital era, copyright is meaningless. Call it stealing, call it something else; it happens on a massive scale, everyday.
Personally, I don't know a single person that has not violated a copyright. Therefore, it a flawed concept and must change or perish. You can argue over terminology as long as you want. That is just what the 'Industry' has been doing. Look where it has brought them. Good luck Radiohead!

That doesn't make it meaningless. Certainly if someone used one of my photos commercially I would have lawyers all over them very quickly and I know several other photographers who've collected serious money in copyright infringement awards. The one time I actually threatened a violator with action they backed down in a big hurry!

Why is it that we in the visual arts - graphic design and photography - seem to have less trouble enforcing copyright than the music industry? We probably win more cases and settlements than the music industry, but my guess is that overall we have far fewer violations, and most of them are bigger violations (i.e., companies tend to violate image copyright whereas individuals tend to violate music copyright)

It's not because it's any harder to copy an image file than a music file. I think it's because we in graphics arts have not made ridiculous demands or failed to give legitimate or individual users reasonable options and alternatives. Frankly, I don't care if an individual wants to use my commercially-shot images for their own personal use and share them with their friends. I do care if a company tries to use them commercially.

Intellectual property rights are an essential element in any economy that wants to provide an incentive for people to exercise creativity. If people cannot profit from their creative activities, especially those that require significant investments of time, effort or training (e.g., movies, symphony orchestras, etc) then at best you'll get the low budget efforts of amateurs. The question is: who is most responsible for undermining copyright protection? I say it's the record labels because they have adopted policies that make ordinary people into violators, and this undermines respect and recognition of artists' rights to their intellectual property.

Imagine you could buy any track you wanted as a high quality MP3 or lossless file for 35 cents. (about what eMusic charges). THEN do you think you'd have millions of violators? I don't. That's why I say it's a problem with the music industry, not the concept of copyright.

The problem - as simon already implied - is that semantically, you are just changing symbols and means, without actually changing the foundation and purpose on which all of them are built.

No matter if "right", "possession", "permit" or whatever - it is all the same in a very fundamental way: control.

What is a right? It is "should-be"-determination. It says that someone "should" have the power to do something.

Overally, there are just two core types of laws - which in turn each have two variants:

1a) Who HAS the power to do something
1b) What IS the case.

2a) Who SHOULD have the power to do something
2b) What SHOULD be the case.

"1" is just a claim. It really is quite simple - its more or less true or false, and thats it.
"2" is a wish/ideal. It claims that some state should be strived for if it isnt yet the case, or be respected if it is already the case.

To make human laws efficient and "honest" in practice, 1 and 2 need some "true" base. Call it "justification" if you want to. With 1, thats simple - just try to reflect truth as good as possible. With 2, it gets a bit more complicated, but one can reduce the solution to "the justification for a Type-2 law, must be logically valid and take 1 into account.".

Copyright fails all those checks. Its Type-1 claims are false and its Type-2 logic is false as well. Its a lie. No hairsplitting or symbol-yadayada will change that.

To comment on the first post - yes sure, it is indeed illegal to download music and share it with other people. But does the penalty stand in proportion to the crime? HELL NO!!! IT IS RIDICULOUS! HAHA!

I mean we laugh, feel sorry for and roll our eyes when people get their hands chopped off for stealing a loaf of bread in some muslim countries. We say it's outrageous but let me tell you, this is just as silly. Yes, silly. I cannot understand people saying "Yeah, she or he had it coming! That's what happens when you steal music". A slap on the wrist would have been sufficient. Pathetic...

Word

I think it is mainly because how paintings are consumed. Copying an MP3 to your iPod isn't associated with much effort. Properly printing and framing a painting however does cost a significant amount of money, and because of that, the "points of reproduction" are few, so can be easier controlled.

When "electronic picturescreens" get cheaper and more popular, you will probably have a much more difficult time, to enforce copyright. Anyone could just download an image, and transfer it to his/her electronic picturescreen.

It is similiar with books. Many people still prefer printed versions. Good Bookprinting requires expensive equipment. Etc. etc. - you see the pattern. And the costs of books are more than reasonable, so that one wouldnt even save much, by printing it oneself. Not really worth the trouble.

I myself am writing on a rather valuable bookseries. I am planning to make use of copyright, but wont rely on it. Its more just a formality. I am not planning to sue people who copy it for noncommercial purposes. If however copying goes rampage, i have the means to keep legal copies attractive.... because very important services will be associated with the printed books - thus, i could just limit those services to people who bought a copy from me. Plus, further books as well as the availability of some services, will depend on bought copies. Thus, my model wouldn't actually work like copyright, but just to some extend use it as a formality. People wouldn't buy the copies for purely legal reasons, but instead for multiple other reasons.

the RIAA is only a money making machine and they don't careabout artists and copyrights at all... All they care is filling their pockets...

I wonder how much money of the lawsuit will go to the artists that were "harmed"??

Oh what about the new copy-protection on CDs they have found? Yes make a few bad spots on your CD here and there os that CD-Roms can't read it properly any more, and some of the more sensitive CD players either.

So basicaly you buy a CD that should really be scraped from the stores because it is faulty, on purpose but that is ok?

Now who is going to start a lawsuit against such thievery??

Maybe it is not just piracy that is killing the industry, but the industry itself is helping a hand too?

Personally, I think copyrighting is simply a way for people to say, "I did this and no one else should be able to take credit for it in my stead." I think that, over time, it has become associated with turning a profit to the point that profit has supplanted credit.

If I composed a piece of music that someone else enjoys, would I mind if they shared it with a friend saying, "Hey, listen to this! This is what ______ wrote. Isn't it fantastic/crappy/average?" No, probably not (although I'd have words if they thought it was crappy... unless it actually WAS crappy... but I digress.).

However, if I composed that same piece of music, and this same someone decided to claim that it was THEIR idea and received praise/criticism for it, would I be so pleased? Probably not.

I realise that most people's first thought would be that I'm actually describing a patent, but isn't that really what the term "copyright" with regard to music/movies/etc. is referring to? I don't think (and please correct me if I'm wrong) that artists can actually file patents for their artwork. Perhaps the latter of my two examples happened with the exchange of money, and as a sort of "insurance" (as was mentioned previously) the idea of copyrighting was introduced.

...Or perhaps I just seem like a dolt way out in left field who finally clued into this concept.

Where do I stand on the subject? Do people get hurt by filesharing and copying? I'd say that some do financially, yes. Do I really care? Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. It really depends on my mood that day, to be honest. If I consistently cared about the pain and/or suffering that every other creature in existence endured, well, I'd be dead by now. Hell, I doubt I would've made it to my first birthday. Why are we so inconsistent and say that pain and hardships are inevitable in life, and are necessary sometimes to grow as individuals, and then go making absolute statements like "copying music hurts people and is therefore wrong?"

Pain, challenges, financial set-backs, people filesharing and copying your music--call it what you will. It all boils down to the same thing: try and try all we may like to postpone or avoid the inevitable, we've all gotta face the music in the end.

About that, not exactly the same but i have found some very interesting topic some time ago.
If anyone is interested, it's a bit longish but interesting for one to see some various perspectives, and primarily of people who are very much opposite of big corporations, they are small and passion driven company and got very upset finding out that their dvd releases can be downloaded for free.
Not saying i'm pro/cons but think that it will be better for them to try to adopt to the situation, really..

http://www.criterionforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5569

I agree with that. I was insisting on the intrisic value of the album as a work of art because I think it is something that is very often overlooked by many people, at least from what I have read of various forums and blog comments.



I am not denying that it is a model that works in today's world for many artists. I was trying to stress on the fact that it is not as trivial as some people seem to imply.

I wish I could come up with an alternative. We are at a crucial point in the evolution of music as a marketable good and I have absolutely no idea about what solution could be found to balance the interests of all the parties concerned.

When you speak of the future of music albums, it sounds as if the only type of album you know, is the one where the tracks are only loosely/not related to each other.

FastTrack for the win.

He's a Christian, he's used to giving away his money to crooks

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1571737/2...radiohead.jhtml

You know I can totally understand that people may dislike the current model for music distribution and its past monopolization by the recording industry. I can totally understand that some people might see the fines imposed in this case as excessive. I can totally understand the current dilemmas surrounding the practical methods of controlling music distribution without all the negatives of heavy DRM and it's possible restrictions of what we would consider "fair use".

However I can't understand the number of people who seem to believe that they have some inherent right to freely distribute someone else’s work! Or who believe that they have the right to use unauthorized distribution to artificially lower the prices to below that which normal supply and demand would dictate. Why do people think they have the right to say, "I think that artist earns too much more than me, so therefore it's valid for me to take his copyrighted works and give them away so that his earnings are reduced because I think he's a rich lazy bastard". Some peoples attitudes here really amaze me.

I know the music business is a very hit and miss way of making money. It seems that many muso's struggle to make a decent living out and just a few very talented (or perhaps very fortunate) ones ever find themselves in the position to make big money from a hit record. But when an artist is fortunate enough to have a recording that is very much in demand and has this opportunity then I believe they deserve to make money as dictated by supply and demand. I strongly believe in the basic right of original content creators to control the distribution and pricing of their work.

Thats because your mind is still part of the system. You cannot understand the flaw of a concept, as long as your thoughts still follow the rules of the flawed concept. You do not think independently.... you think how the system tells you to think. And thats why you dont notice how much it is false.



Short version of your logic: "Because the act of CREATION is so valuable, an artist should be compensated for the worthless act of COPYING."

No. Simply "no".



Right, you "believe"..... completely in ignorance of truth, "wishful thinking" is the only thing which remains.... temporarily, until it is crushed by what is actually the case. Game over - you failed at evolution.

- Lyx

Interesting news: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtm.../bcnnine109.xml
It seems like Radiohead has started it.

Radiohead's poor and scamming start. Maybe Trent will kick it off right...maybe.

That depends on what you think punishment is for.

Fanatic Muslim countries that do stuff like that have very low rates of crime, compared, say, to the US. And they have a MUCH smaller percentage of their population in jail, so they save a lot of money and don't have so many ex-cons walking the street. So they would justify their extreme punishment by saying that it acts as a deterrent.

I'm not sure I actually buy the deterrent theory - the US state of Texas has the death penalty for murder-1, and Massacachusetts does not, but Texas still has a higher murder rate! But the RIAA's justification is deterrence.

An interesting and slightly scary thread as somone mentioned earlier. I was aware that lots of people stole copyrighted music but had always assumed they felt slightly guilty. Are the rationalisations genuine? Or are we right to be slightly scared?

Well, I'm certainly not suggesting it's trivial - the musicians I know who do it work their butts off at it, and are always under stress. Teaching assignments are seldom more than one academic year in length, and are often only a semester at a time; one illness or injury means cancelling a tour, health insurance is hard to get; you're on the road a lot, you have to spend huge amounts of time just TCB WRT contracts, lining up assignments and tour dates, etc. It's very hard.

As I said, I buy used CD's, rip them to my hard drive, and save the CD's. This is perfectly legal but neither the artist or label makes a penny off my purchase.

And I genuinely, in my heart-of-hearts DO feel bad about this. But I am not given any reasonable alternative.

There is no technical reason why ALL music could not be sold as high-quality MP3's. You could easily and inaudibly watermark each track with enough information so if someone passed that MP3 on to someone else it could be traced back to the original purchaser. And if you priced it low enough - halfway between emusic and iTunes - you'd eliminate a lot of the incentive to pirate. Personally, I think that this is exactly the direction everything will go in the next few years. But why are they waiting so long?

(BTW - trying to embed a watermark in a lossless file in such a way that it could still be read after conversion to a lossy format like MP3 is a harder technical problem.)

If i despise one thing, then it is hypocrites. You claim that i twist truth with fantasy.... and then go right ahead and justify that by saying, that morals and laws will win against my logical and introspective arguments. Now who is the one, who prefers fantasy and wishful thinking to rule over truth, hypocrite?

http://www.freejammie.com/

When copying is inherent to the transaction, then that logic makes perfect sense. It's the same logic that says "the creation of this novel is so valuable to me, that I think the publisher/artist/whomever should be compensated with $X so that I may have a copy of it."

I'm sorry to have to say this but whoever seriously thinks that the RIAA is about music or protecting artists is sadly mistaken and very naive. The RIAA is about protecting the outdated business model of a multi billion dollar industry. They don't care about artists, they don't care about consumers, they don't even care about the law unless they can lobby (read: bribe) to get completely unreasonable and draconian protective measures passed.

What services does the record industry offer for it to deserve peoples hard earned money?
1. Reproduction (Obsolete with computer and cd burner)
2. Distribution (Obsolete with internet and P2P)
3. Marketing (Not a service to the consumer, even an annoyance on occasion)
4. Discovering new artists and making them accessible to the consumer (Obsolete with the internet)

The record industry is outdated. Like every outdated business model it should be allowed to roll over and die instead of being protected by draconian laws that are not going to achieve anything in the end apart from making some people scapegoats of a hypocritical state policy and a desperate industry in decline.

P.S.
If you're a musician and what you create is in sufficient demand there will always be ways to make money from your work. Several have been mentioned earlier in this thread.

You are quite right there. It so happens that I chance upon an invoice at a record shop. You see, RIAA not only control recorded sound but distribution as well. RIAA control the price level exceedingly well considering that price of new releases are more or less same anywhere. But it gives a lot of leeway to retail shops. What I saw in that invoice tells me that record shops make about 100% profit on new releases. And for that kind of profit margins, we customers just get crap service from these retail shops. I don't know how it is like on state side but half way round the world at Tower Records, they make you stand while you evaluate the material and limit the number of discs and time you many spend evaluating. To make matters worse, there is only one set of headphones available in that big shop. There was even a situation where I was told I couldn't evaluate a particular disc because it was a gold disc! That is the kind of service the RIAA cartel throws at you.

I didn't know there was such a long thread on this case. I made my comments in another related thread here at hydrogenaudio; General Music Discussion.

The Jury should have been disqualified for coming up with that award. It clearly shows that the Jury is biased with the RIAA. They are trying to make a point through file sharers and using this woman as a scapegoat. According to the law, they could have gone as low as $18,000 in total or as high as $720,000. But they went for somewhere in between. To be fair, the law was written to fight piracy. So, the key question is, is this woman a pirate? Did she profit from her file sharing activities? It would seem that the amount awarded is disproportionate with the nature of her crime. And the judge was party to it. It puzzles me why the defense did not make a case for the woman where consumers share copyrighted material in the real world. Lending and borrowing CDs among friends for example. It would seem terribly unfortunate for this woman to be made an example for the crimes of most consumers. I am sure you and I have at one time or another shared copyrighted material?

None whatsoever. It says, "When the RIAA does sue individuals, any money it receives from settlements and judgments are generally reinvested into the group's antipiracy program, said Jonathan Lamy, an RIAA spokesman."

As if file sharing is piracy . Where did all the files come from in the first place? RIAA certainly didn't donated them. It came from genuine buyers who decided to share them with others in the hope that others would share material they don't have. Is that stealing? No, I don't think so. I like to think that file sharing is for evaluating. It may take sometime for the copyright owners to get compensation but I do believe they eventually will. File sharing allows potential buyers to warm up to an artistic material. If the buyer doesn't like it, the files would probably be discarded to reclaim disk space. On the other hand, if the buyer likes the material and keeps it for further enjoyment, the buyer may eventually buy the material just to compensate the copyright owners. They may not even use the original copy but that is beside the point. They are not pirates to start off with so, most right minded consumers will pay eventually. So they don't feel guilty about not compensating their favorite artistes. I like to think that Jammie Thomas would say this, "God, Steely Dan is so cool. Their music really rocks. I have to paypal them something." As I mentioned in a related thread, file sharing is making the role of RIAA and the big record companies obsolete. Artistes can now publish and distribute their material directly, online. They may hire website designers to do a good job so their site draw as many visitors as possible or they may even advertise in forums such as this one. File sharing is changing the landscape of the arts industry. Long live file sharing!

I think this is true for a lot of people (at least for me it certainly is). A rough estimation, but I think that about half my collection of CD's wouldn't have been there if I didn't download some albums from time to time for evaluation. It is the kind of music that is not being played on the radio. Also, I wouldn't have bought some of this music when I would have listened to it in the record store, because it needs more playing time before you "get it".

It is very simple, if I like an album after some time I will buy it, because I want the real product AND to support the artist who made it.

Downloading music has been pretty bad for my bank account.

And all the people I know who download music (music lovers) discover new music this way.

You could not be further from the truth. TRUE artistes cares not for wealth but the APPRECIATION they get for their arts. The applause and praise is worth more to an artiste than monetary rewards. But then again, artistes also needs to eat so some monetary compensation is welcome. As long as the artiste is not starving, wealth is secondary. If I were an artiste, the fact that my material is top of the downloads, whether through legal channels or otherwise, would spur me on to produce more material. I don't think very much of artistes who whine along with RIAA about being robbed. I detest such artistes. They get no respect from me .