Downloading |
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The Pessimist
Prog Reviewer Joined: June 13 2007 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 3834 |
Posted: February 17 2009 at 18:52 | |||
If you look it up, most of the downloads that take place are from the "big" artists, the top 2-3% as you say. Chart artists. Now judging by all their living conditions on programmes like Cribs and such, file sharing hasn't really affected them. Big deal, Justin Timberlake will now have to get a gold plated bentley instead of a diamond encrusted one. I feel for him, really.
Also, pretty much all fans of underground bands like Meshuggah and Napalm Death that I know of pay for their CDs to support them. I hang round with a lot of metalheads, and this issue often pops up in conversation, and all of them buy CDs because they feel like they are making a difference. I myself use iTunes to get my music (or other alternative legal sites), so I am on that bandwagon also.
The fact is though that file sharing will never stop, much like pirate DVDs, and no matter what the governments do society will always find a way to cheat their way to music, there is no way around it. Sad but true, artists have no other option but to deal with making money another way. Or simply have faith that their fans are not stealing from them. Either way, it won't stop so long as we have the internet. So why not legalise it? No-one is doing anything about it anyway, and I imagine it's pretty damn difficult to catch musical pirates. So let them be, if they want to be a thorn in the side of musicians, then so be it. Let it be on their conscience. They are only frowned upon by the rest of the music loving community, and if they can deal with that then they are stronger people than I am. |
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"Market value is irrelevant to intrinsic value."
Arnold Schoenberg |
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Pnoom!
Forum Senior Member Joined: September 02 2006 Location: OH Status: Offline Points: 4981 |
Posted: February 17 2009 at 18:57 | |||
So it's ok to violate the rights of the rich because they won't notice it as much as if you violate the rights of the poor?
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Slartibartfast
Collaborator Honorary Collaborator / In Memoriam Joined: April 29 2006 Location: Atlantais Status: Offline Points: 29630 |
Posted: February 17 2009 at 18:57 | |||
I've said it before and it bears repeating, you should never illegally download, except for Prince and Metallica, in which case you should download illegally and never listen to.
Edited by Slartibartfast - February 17 2009 at 20:46 |
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Dean
Special Collaborator Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: February 17 2009 at 19:23 | |||
First off, once you legalise illegal downloading then the flood-gates open and no one will buy music ever again - CDs and DVDs will vanish and all the legal download sites will close. Why use iTunes when you can legally get it for free? Secondly, to legalise illegal downloading you would have to scrap all copyright law, because you have decided that anyone can copy anything without paying for it - that means that no one would be able to protect their intellectual property - if you wrote a song and Bruce Springsteen said it was his and that he wrote it there would be nothing you could do about it, no one would believe you over him, you would be branded a plagiarist.
Thirdly - Justin Trousersnake, Prince and Britney Spears are irrelevant - more people download from those artists because more people buy their CDs - however no one knows the actual numbers of illegal downloads - all numbers are extrapolations based on information gathered from a few monitored sites.
Edited by Dean - February 17 2009 at 19:26 |
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Pnoom!
Forum Senior Member Joined: September 02 2006 Location: OH Status: Offline Points: 4981 |
Posted: February 17 2009 at 19:43 | |||
Blatantly false, since I would. |
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The Pessimist
Prog Reviewer Joined: June 13 2007 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 3834 |
Posted: February 17 2009 at 20:12 | |||
These are bold statements I am making, but please think about this for a second. How many negative results would there be exactly from legalising file sharing? Nothing is done about it nowadays anyway, so it is a pretty useless law. I challenge anyone to find a substantial amount of arrests made due to illegally downloading music. One person isn't enough, because one person couldn't possibly single-handedly make a difference to the music industry by file-sharing.
Edited by The Pessimist - February 17 2009 at 20:13 |
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"Market value is irrelevant to intrinsic value."
Arnold Schoenberg |
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Ivan_Melgar_M
Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator Joined: April 27 2004 Location: Peru Status: Offline Points: 19552 |
Posted: February 17 2009 at 20:30 | |||
Good point but even harder Dean, a country may change their laws, but this countries:
Are members of The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), which is an international treaty, with at least Congresional Law rank, but if you want to leave a treaty, you have to denounce it and wait some time, plus approval of the Congress by qualified number of members.
In Perú a treaty is only under the Constitution but above the law (Except Human Rights which are at least uin the same level), you have to modify it as you would modify the Constitution.
So we are talking about a big deal.
Iván
EDIT: Had to correct the list, it was outdated, now there are 184 countries and not 165 as in the previous list.
Edited by Ivan_Melgar_M - February 17 2009 at 20:50 |
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Slartibartfast
Collaborator Honorary Collaborator / In Memoriam Joined: April 29 2006 Location: Atlantais Status: Offline Points: 29630 |
Posted: February 17 2009 at 20:45 | |||
My country doesn't have a good history of honoring treaties.
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Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...
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rogerthat
Prog Reviewer Joined: September 03 2006 Location: . Status: Offline Points: 9869 |
Posted: February 17 2009 at 21:18 | |||
A couple of points I would like to make.
1. Offering your albums to be downloaded for free need not be charity. The internet has many free-service revenue sharing models where the seller gets paid for the number of hits or through ads. The presence of ads too need not spoil your experience because AFAIK Google uses the same model and I at least don't find Google to be horribly cluttered but maybe I am less choosy, what do I know. Heathen - a US thrash metal band - already offers their entire discography on their own website for free - helps pay for the website because of more hits generated and spurs sales of their CDs and also promotes their tours all in one shot. AFAIK, most metalheads - myself included! - I know downloaded the Heathen albums from there instead of using torrents. The rationale of using an official channel to download is very obvious: secure, assured quality, no viruses and no question of illegality most importantly. You may ask why would anybody go to the legal free channel if there is an illegal one? I ask why wouldn't people make the shift, it would be a lot more convenient to use an official site or general music portal than to use myriad combinations of search and download engines. As Mike - or was it Debrewguy - pointed out, it's really the big labels who are reluctant to move onto such a model because they can't make a lot of money through such a model and can't pay for the big bosses' private ranch or yacht or what have you but it could help smaller bands survive and subsist instead of disappearing after two albums as they are usually forced to do. 2. As far as underground bands are concerned, I believe many of them use channels that don't depend entirely on the stores for income. I have a copy of a demo by an Indian metal band passed onto me by my friend who had attended their concert. The CD was sold as a compliment to the concert ticket. That's then not a lot of money but at least it's SOME money and people get to know about the band. Afterwards, when a full length is released on a label, you already have potential customers and people here at least do try to support local bands by buying their releases. It's not patriotism or charity, just mutual benefit: the band survives and in a gig-starved nation, you've at least got some decent bands to watch once in a while. Ergo, the underground scene depends more on keeping its proximate fanbase interested; few of them are going to break into the international market and if they do, it is ironically the internet that would have helped them to get attention through word-of-mouth promotion on music forums. Obviously the situation would be different in USA or Europe where you get to see the big bands on a more regular basis and maybe people don't care so much about smaller bands. |
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A Person
Forum Senior Member Joined: November 10 2008 Location: __ Status: Offline Points: 65760 |
Posted: February 17 2009 at 22:18 | |||
If I am able to procure an album legally it is the preferable method. I do not support the stealing of intellectual property, but there are just some albums you will never hear otherwise. For example, a few years ago i found a recording of "Dominoes" by Syd Barrett off bbc and even though the sound quality is bad, for some reason i prefer the lower quality sound to the cd recording, the static fits the song well for me. That said, I still don't like the idea of being able to take anything you want without paying the artist. I have alays wondered, If it is illegal to share files, is it also illegal to read a book in the store so yu don't have to buy it?Is it illegal to use a privately owned movie in school?
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Mr ProgFreak
Forum Senior Member Joined: November 08 2008 Location: Sweden Status: Offline Points: 5195 |
Posted: February 18 2009 at 01:43 | |||
Agree 100%. Fortunately, as I mentioned before, today the cost of recording, producing and promoting albums have dropped significantly, and that might be the chance for musicians to make music without having to make contracts with big companies to finance them. Of course making music in your spare time while working in a regular 9-5 job is not for everyone, and many artists will need to find other ways to finance their living. One possible solution that comes to my creative mind: Concerts transmitted live over the internet. Bands could perform in a small venue and increase the audience size massively. Payment would be in advance (you card gets charged as you open the stream). |
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Dean
Special Collaborator Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: February 18 2009 at 02:13 | |||
Neither blatant, nor false - Not everyone downloads from iTunes to support the artist - many do it because other methods are illegal. In this instance Justin Timberlake, Britney and Prince are relevant, because it is their fans that make iTunes viable. Once illegal downloads are legal then those fans are the ones who will abandon iTunes - sales from our demographic will not keep iTunes going. Edited by Dean - February 18 2009 at 02:16 |
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Dean
Special Collaborator Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: February 18 2009 at 02:58 | |||
(I don't do multicolour-quoting, so you'll have to work out which of my comments go with which of Alex's comments the hard way...sorry)
Part of the morality that stops most people downloading illegally is simply that - because it is illegal. The Governments can do lots of things, at the moment ethics and statutes stop them (Data Protection Act etc.) - every action you do on the Interweb can be tracked and monitored by your ISP, since every request and every delivery starts and ends at your PC hiding your IP address is irrelevant because your ISP knows who you are - if Governments and agencies put their minds to it, they can do plenty about it. They don't even have to go that far - they can set up fake torrent sites and grab every user who attempts a download (and who says they aren't doing that already ).
Copyright is the whole basis of music ownership - taking away the owner's right to sell (which is what making illegal downloads legal actually means), is taking away their copyright. The Springsteen example was to show that at the moment copyright is legal protection against Intelectual Property theft. A recording of a song is not proof that you wrote it. It is not illegal for a band to cover another artists song in a live situation, but it is illegal to record it (either live or in the studio) without permission or licence.
It's all proportional - if 40% of Eminems music is downloaded illegal and 40% of Marillions is also downloaded illegally the obviously Eminem is still being downloaded 1000s of times more than Marillion - however, if Eminem loses 40% of his income he is still rich - if Marillion do, they are even more broke.
Torrent sites have every reason to lie about their stats, even they want to be popular
The negative affects are already evident - not see a correlation between downloading and reduced sales is just an excuse to justify downloading. Removing the legal restrictions of illegal downloading would dismantle the entire music business infrastructure - not just record labels, disty's and music retailers, but independent studios and sessions musicians - whether you believe that is a good thing or a bad thing is immaterial - personally I like home-studio recordings, but I prefer top-end studio recordings. People are complaining about the blandness of modern recordings as it is - imagine the situation where everything is recorded at home-studio quality to the same homogenised standard.
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limeyrob
Forum Senior Member VIP Member Joined: January 15 2005 Location: England Status: Offline Points: 1402 |
Posted: February 18 2009 at 04:46 | |||
Illegal downloaders only do it because it doesn't affect them. If the boot was on the other foot and they were being stolen from you can bet that they will be the biggest complainers around. This something for nothing brigade really get my goat. |
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laplace
Prog Reviewer Joined: October 06 2005 Location: popupControl(); Status: Offline Points: 7606 |
Posted: February 18 2009 at 05:36 | |||
I don't have a staunch, anti-thought opinion on illegal downloading. Personally, the only thing I find annoys me about the practise is that it trivialises legitimately free music, since most people in the pirate mold consider it all free anyway and we, biased by what's gone before, all come to associate a physical CD/LP/etc release with quality and free music be damned. That in turn lowers the bar on the quality of what people will choose to self-publish, out of desperation or a lack of respect for the material of real musicians, degrading the average free song and making it seem unworthwhile for musical gold prospectors to even bother at all.
Edited by laplace - February 18 2009 at 05:37 |
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laplace
Prog Reviewer Joined: October 06 2005 Location: popupControl(); Status: Offline Points: 7606 |
Posted: February 18 2009 at 05:38 | |||
God, yes. They're not being taxed enough. =P |
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Jim Garten
Special Collaborator Retired Admin & Razor Guru Joined: February 02 2004 Location: South England Status: Offline Points: 14693 |
Posted: February 18 2009 at 06:26 | |||
On the other side of the coin, one reason people do download illegally is little to do with cost or morals or ethics (although it should be), they do it because it's so easy to do; it's a crime committed from the comfort of your own home with the click of a mouse button - it's so easy, it's ridiculous, you don't need to be furtive, you don't need to dodge store detectives, all you need to do is know the right website... how can that be a crime? Becase it is still theft It doesn't matter if you're downloading the latest U2 album or an old IQ album - you are stealing. |
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Jon Lord 1941 - 2012 |
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The Pessimist
Prog Reviewer Joined: June 13 2007 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 3834 |
Posted: February 18 2009 at 06:51 | |||
Not sure I agree with that. I mean, I've done things that are illegal in the past (not naming anything here), yet I still don't download music for free. I'm not particularly scared of the law at all, and I know a fair few people who have the same views as me. A lot of my friends take class B drugs (please don't judge me on that), yet they don't download music illegally because it's not fair on the artists, not because it's illegal. As mentioned above, the law doesn't exactly do much about file-sharing anyway, it's all idle threats from the government, so why would you need to fear the law on that basis? As I said, it's all down to your own moral views at the end of the day, and it is the only thing stopping most people from downloading music for free.
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"Market value is irrelevant to intrinsic value."
Arnold Schoenberg |
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Pnoom!
Forum Senior Member Joined: September 02 2006 Location: OH Status: Offline Points: 4981 |
Posted: February 18 2009 at 07:21 | |||
So when you say no one, you don't mean it? |
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Dean
Special Collaborator Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: February 18 2009 at 07:29 | |||
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What?
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