^ you can buy 128MB mobile players for the price of two CDs ...

I do download music, and if I like it enough, I'll buy the album. If not, I'll delete the files and not listen to them anymore. I feel downloading is okay in order to make "educated purchases."

http://www.last.fm - www.last.fm saves a lot of downloading trouble, it's particularly good for finding similar artists.

Why use illegal p2p filesharing when you can listen to the music for free?

sometimes downloading is the only way to get any recordings of rare band, impossible to obtain even through specialized stores.

I love original CDs too.

gabbel ratchett wrote: and when your favorite indie bands quit making new albums because they can't recover their production costs I'll bet you'll wonder why.

if its that far off, then i doubt the 10-15 bucks would not have saved them.

jiggajake wrote: gabbel ratchett wrote: and when your favorite indie bands quit making new albums because they can't recover their production costs I'll bet you'll wonder why. if its that far off, then i doubt the 10-15 bucks would not have saved them.

10 bucks x 1000 downloads or file shares = $10,000.00, thats not chump change kids.

i agree, the artists dont see it all, AND we're not talking about everyone as a whole, we're talking about the individual, just because they outlawed stealing, doesnt mean there arent going to be people that steal whether you think its right or not, if im against downloading, then im against downloading, its not oging to stop a huge group of people from doing it, so as an individual it doesnt make much of a difference.

Theres a lot of albums i own in mp3 only , i usually buy records but there a lot of things i can't find in my place ... So emule is sometimes the solution for me...

Well, when you buy a CD from an indie band off of their website who do you think gets the money? I'm not talking about King Crimson or Yes or Rush. Lesser known bands that many of you like depend on fan support to keep prog'in on. If anything, you should buy multiple copies of their CD's and give them to all you friends for birthdays or christmas. 

Some of you may be musicians, some of you may get into a band, some of your bands may work hard enough and invest enough money to make an album and put out a CD. At that point you'll want to sell the cd's, then you'll understand.

ok, well in that case gabbel, i promise to only download well known people that my downloading will not really affect

I agree with almost everyone here + I download lots of files every month, because I think it's a cheaper and faster way to discover new bands, or to get a preview of "that new release" you've been pondering whether it might suck or not.

Although I must add... nothing beats the thrill of listening thoroughly for the first time to a prog album, and actually falling in love at "first-hearing".

samhob wrote: Theres a lot of albums i own in mp3 only , i usually buy records but there a lot of things i can't find in my place ... So emule is sometimes the solution for me...

You don't OWN these mp3s, you didn't pay for them.

It's one thing to download mp3's that bands put up for people to check them out. It's a completely different matter to take files that others have posted and share them for free with the rest of the world.

Just realize that your actions will have reactions, and you might not like what happens down the road.

If you really love prog, you'll support it, help it to thrive, musicians need money. When musicians don't get money they become waiters, landscapers, used car salesmen. Anybody wanna buy the new DVD of Arthur Brown painting the side of a house?

jiggajake wrote: i buy cds, but i also download, because being aschoolboy i dont have the money to f**king fuel the amount of music i listen to, if you care to buy them for me so i wont download then be my guest, prog is supported through concerts and other merchandise as well as cds. If you want to put yourself on a level above us "criminals", then thats all you.

Get a JOB.

I would say 70% of the bands i listen to, i litsen to because of downloading. And then i buy merchendise, go to concerts( if their still alive) and buy cds and dvds.

I did the math one time to figure out how much money was spent by me directly, or inderectly( i told freinds and such) on dream theater stuff. Its over $600! so they cannot complain that i have downloaded half of their catalouge, cause if i didnt do that, they would have non of that money.

Bands, well at least good bands, are making more money because of downloading, as i just previously showed you.

so donwload away!

Trouserpress wrote: sonic_assassin wrote: My fav P2P is WinMX, btw. Try Soulseek. It's about 10000% better than Win MX.

Huh, WinMX is absolutely free though!

Trouserpress wrote: Snow Dog wrote: Trouserpress wrote: sonic_assassin wrote: My fav P2P is WinMX, btw. Try Soulseek. It's about 10000% better than Win MX. Huh, WinMX is absolutely free though! ...so's Soulseek. What's yer point, Snowy?

When i tried soulseek, they wanted a monthly subscription!

Edit....ha! I've been trying the wrong soulseek, I tried ages ago, when you mentioned it, but thre's another one you pay for!!!!

Anyway WinMX is still better! Or should I ask, in what way is soulseek better?

soulseeks better cause you can download whole cds

Trouserpress wrote: jiggajake wrote: soulseeks better cause you can download whole cds And any downloads you do do are from specific users who you can communicate with. There's also an (ocassionally) lively progressive rock chat room where users swap recommendations and discuss albums. Oh, and the search facility's better. And other reasons that I can't think of off hand. It's just generally better - this is coming from someone who used Win MX for about a year.

You can download whole CDs with WinMX, you also download from specific users and you can communicate with them! So thats the same then,

Search fascility better? I don't know yet, but didn't like what I saw! I'll try it though!

I DL music  - if I like the album - Ill buy it. If I don`t like it I wouldn`t bought that album anyway.

No money lost here...But I listen to more music than I used to because it`s SO much easier to get access to...Actually I buy MORE albums than I usually would..... I LOSE!

Smaller bands tend not to make that much money from CD sales (there are always exceptions, but it's generally true) so if you want to support the likes of Pendragon you're probably better going to a gig and buying a t shirt (and if you want to buy a CD, buy it directly from the band themselves). The bootlegging which hits artists is the proliferation of mass produced cheap copies, which home downloaders aren't generally involved with.

My own take on downloading is that, in the case of new or unfamiliar artists, it allows me to try before I buy - and if I like the music I always buy a legitimate copy because there's always some loss of quality with MP3 files, plus I like to have the information in the packaging.

I also have no qualms about using downloading to replace albums that I bought in another format when they were first released - especially those which weren't that great to start off with. In the case of albums like More or Obscured by Clouds I resent paying full price for a second rate 30 year old album. After all, CD reissues represent almost pure profit for the music industry (production costs are pretty minimal and there's no guarantee that any money will actually reach the artist).

Remember those warnings that home taping was killing music? This is the same idiocy repeating itself. The emergence of the CD format in the 80s gave the music industry a cash bonanza that defies belief. This current furore is really about major corporations blaming consumers for not making them even more obscenely wealthy than they already are.

goose wrote: BitchBrew wrote: If you can't afford to buy a CD, downloading is OK! WHY THE f**k NOT!? ...and if you can't afford a CD player, stealing is OK? Why the f**k not?

 I can't afford a Ferrari so it must be okay to steal one then!

I would suggest you talk to Nick Barrett of Pendragon about downloading and explain to him why you think it's okay to deprive him of his royalties.

chopper wrote: goose wrote: BitchBrew wrote: If you can't afford to buy a CD, downloading is OK! WHY THE f**k NOT!? ...and if you can't afford a CD player, stealing is OK? Why the f**k not?  I can't afford a Ferrari so it must be okay to steal one then! I would suggest you talk to Nick Barrett of Pendragon about downloading and explain to him why you think it's okay to deprive him of his royalties.

You are not stealing by downloading. You are copying information with your own materials. This is the same as when you are baking a chocolate cake from a recipe that isn't created by yourself. You apply the information and the result is an identical chocolate cake. Chocolate cakes taste good. Though, copyright laws works in mysterious ways, and by mysterious I mean, they don't make any sense, but they fuel the pockets of alot of lawyers and record companies.

^ Poxx:

Of course you are stealing when you download music.

goose wrote: So? The musicians signed that contract, therefore they're happy for the record company to take what they do in return for promotion.

What is your point? You forgot to defend your incorrect statement. The discussion is not whether it is right or wrong to download. Actually, there is no discussion: Copying music is not stealing.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=stealing&db - http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=stealing&db =*

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=copying&db - http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=copying&db =*

It's important to differentiate between the two terms, since stealing directly hurt the original owner of the object. Therefore, it should be punished more severely. In many cases it does not, and the reason for that is illogical copyright laws.

^ wrong. I recently read an interesting article on the subject and the bottom line was that most young people (who have grown up with the internet) just fail to understand even basic principles ... they think that EVERYTHING is free.

When you download something, you're using something without paying for it.

Imagine that EVERYBODY stopped buying albums and just downloads them. The record company AND the musicians don't get anything for their work.

NOT HURTING ANYBODY? You must be out of your mind. 

Poxx wrote: That was an extremely unintelligent answer. Please read my post again, but this time thoroughly. If you still fail to understand the difference between the two terms, and why it is important to differentiate them, then... too bad.

The law agrees with me ...

Poxx wrote: chopper wrote: goose wrote: BitchBrew wrote: If you can't afford to buy a CD, downloading is OK! WHY THE f**k NOT!? ...and if you can't afford a CD player, stealing is OK? Why the f**k not?  I can't afford a Ferrari so it must be okay to steal one then! I would suggest you talk to Nick Barrett of Pendragon about downloading and explain to him why you think it's okay to deprive him of his royalties. You are not stealing by downloading. You are copying information with your own materials. This is the same as when you are baking a chocolate cake from a recipe that isn't created by yourself. You apply the information and the result is an identical chocolate cake. Chocolate cakes taste good. Though, copyright laws works in mysterious ways, and by mysterious I mean, they don't make any sense, but they fuel the pockets of alot of lawyers and record companies.

I don't think your cake analogy works. The author of a recipe would probably be on a royalty per book sold (assuming the recipe came from a book). They would not be paid every time someone baked a cake from their recipe. The analogy would be if you borrowed the recipe book (e.g. from a library) and photocopied it before using it. You would then be depriving the author of a royalty that he or she would earn if you had bought a legit copy.

My point with that analogy is that, it's not the exact code that is protected by the copyright law, it's the general idea that is copyrighted. You can compress, encode, encrypt and burn the cd onto another medium, but it's still protected by copyright law. That is the same thing as having copyright on an opinion or an idea, or the procedure of baking a cake. The digital copyright laws are vague and/or flawed in some areas.

Regarding, whether copying is stealing. It is not stealing. The object must be physically  deprived/taken away from the original owner, so that he is not in possesion of the object any longer, before it can be called stealing. This is not the case with copying.

Is it right or is wrong to download - is it ethical? That's a different story.

^ music is not a tangible commodity, so different rules apply. The problem is that listening to the music is comparable to eating a cake, or consuming any other "physical" product. If you didn't pay for it, you caused damage to the seller. You did something which he would normally charge you a certain amount of money which HE is free to choose. He created the music, it's his, he owns it. He can decide that listening to that music costs a certain amount of money.

Think about it - radio stations and even restaurants or bars have to pay royalties for the music they play. You want to listen - you pay. It's very simple. If you don't pay, you cause financial damage to the creator of the music. Maybe you don't call it "stealing" ... that's fine with me. I 'll just call it "illegal copying" then, which is equal to "stealing" in the eyes of the law.