Internet.. P2P.. A saviour or a killer?

TheProgtologist wrote: And another question...... How do you think the record companies are going to look if they start headhunting?? What would you think of a company that is suing a 13 year old kid that has thousands of mp3s on their puter? Who would appear to be the bad guy in that scenario? To most of the general public......not the kid.

They did just that. Of course they sued the kid's mother, who also confessed that she used filesharing. The case was in the media about half a year ago - you must have heard of it?

Woah, reading this thread, I wonder how I have managed to get by with any kind of "downloading program" (gee, I don´t even know the proper term for this device, lol)  whatsoever for the last three years since I got into music for real...! Heck, I don´t even have a sound system on my computer so I can´t even listen to any samples before going out and expanding on my collection. Yet I have already scraped together a 200 + CD collection and can't recall more than a few of them having been truly disappointing. Either I have been damn lucky or my taste in music is very forgiving

"Internet essential, downloading redundant" has been my motto so far. I won´t even accept any burned copies anymore, unless the product is a rare one that has either not been released on CD or is out of print. Thanks to my ex I have too many burned copies of records that I really like but sadly the motivation to go and buy them legally is not that great when there are so many other records, which I don´t have in any format, to be bought. It's wonderful that he introduced me to all that great music but in the long run I wish I hadn´t had access to those CD-R's and had just gone and purchased the real thing instead at some point... I mean, I don't know if there is a qualitative difference between burned copies and those so called mp3-files but there must be, since CD-Rs to my ears don't sound that inferior to legal CD's.

I would never have found prog without the net, that is for sure, but it had nothing to do with downloading the actual music, it had to do with discussions on forums like this, and having access to all those reviews online. I prefer to read my way through to music, rather than listening to samples beforehand -it's more fun and exciting, and so far, I haven't been burned, really! (knocks on wood three times...............................)  

A lot has been said about how much an artist makes on a CD sale.

I submit...

The following is a breakdown of where the money goes when we buy a CD. Typically, the artist earns just over $1 on every CD sold. Promotion, video, recording and touring costs are often subtracted from that figure, leaving the artist with very little after every one else has been paid.

So, that's $40,250 / 500,000 CD's = $0.08 per CD

If the group has 4 members that's $0.02 per member per CD sold - before the managers, agents, etc. take their cut.

Do I use P2P - yes.

Am I afraid of reprecussions? - no.

I AM CANADIAN

And in Canada today...

The Copyright Act contains a special exception for "private copying": it permits the copying of music files "onto an audio recording medium for the private use of the person who makes the copy", but does not permit copying for the purpose of "distributing" or "communicating to the public by telecommunication" (s.80). It is generally accepted that downloading music for personal use is legal under this section. However, the record industry disputes this on the basis that a computer's hard drive does not constitute an "audio recording medium".

According to the Federal Court, in a decision issued by Justice von Finckenstein on March 31, 2004, neither downloading a song for personal use nor merely making that file available to others to download from your computer (without some more active sharing activity) amounts to infringement under Canadian copyright law. The court ruled that "the mere fact of placing a copy on a shared directory in a computer where that copy can be accessed via a P2P service does not amount to distribution" or "authorization of the reproduction of sound recordings" under the Copyright Act. However, this decision has been appealed to the Federal Court of Appeal, so the issue remains in legal limbo.

YYZed wrote: Savior. Without it I wouldn't have explored a lot of bands that I am huge fans of today. I of course bought the albums afterward. I find that a lot of the music on P2P programs is of poor quality, but on Bittorrent it is marginally better.

In Spain thousands of people use a program called e-mule, based on e-donkey and Kad networks, and you can find in a few seconds virtually ANY album with good quality (MP3 at least 192 kbps, or better formats like .ogg or .mpc).