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

Meddler wrote: MikeEnRegalia wrote: Firepuck wrote: After the record companies handcuff P2P sharing they will go after e-Bay for royalties, then shut down second hand record stores, start bringing lawsuits against garage sales, then sue your neighbour for playing music without headphones on, because hey, he's sharing music illegally. Mark my words! Nonsense. I'm sure he's being sarcastic, and its almost obvious.

I hope so ... but I heard that kind of reasoning from many people, and some of them weren't joking at all. To me these "reasons" for doing ilegal filesharing are ridiculous:

• "I wouldn't have bought the album anyway, so my listening to the stolen files created no financial damage".
  
  That's wrong. It's not only not true, but even if one would really not have bought a single album if file sharing was technically impossible, it would still be wrong to do it. File sharing is stealing, and the above statement is the same as saying "I wouldn't have had the money to buy it anyway" when caught shoplifting. If the item was important enough to you to take the risk of stealing it, it must have some value to you. Another analogy is "I didn't like the movie anyway" when caught watching a movie without having a valid ticket.
   
  
• "It's a good thing to steal the albums, because the artists don't earn anything from the sales anyway, and - in some Robin Hood like fashion - we must fight against the evil music industry which is exploiting the artists"
  
  That's a misguided and dangerous attitude. If you think that - go ahead, but don't complain when they sue the hell out of you.
   
  
• "I don't use legal alternatives which employ DRM - it is limiting my use of the audio too much"
  
  Ok, you can't burn it to disc (at least the subscription based songs), some services provide only streaming, so you can't even save it to disk. But isn't the true purpose of these services to enable you to listen to the music? Looking back at my P2P "career" a couple of years ago, I see that 90% of the albums that I downloaded (and I downloaded A LOT) didn't make it into my collection in the end. Why even waste a CD-R on them? For $10/month you can listen to all tracks that are available on Napster - and that is a really good deal.

Dirk wrote: MikeEnRegalia wrote: Looking back at my P2P "career" a couple of years ago, I see that 90% of the albums that I downloaded (and I downloaded A LOT) didn't make it into my collection in the end. Why even waste a CD-R on them? For $10/month you can listen to all tracks that are available on Napster - and that is a really good deal.   From your posts i would not have believed you ever had a p2p "career" .

That was until a couple of years ago, when it was not "definitely illegal" to download mp3s.

MikeEnRegalia wrote: The problem with Napster is that it's only available in: Usa,UK,Canada and Germany at the moment. I mailed them and they told me they are working on broadening there coverage but it takes time.

Yes, that's a big problem. It's mostly licencing issues, because licencing deals are only valid for single countries. In Germany we only have Napster and staytuned.de, and I really hope that this year Yahoo will join in.

MikeEnRegalia wrote: I will check out Yahoo music next. In the meantime i'm interested in what you think of a site as allofmp3.com. Here you can buy albums for 1-2 $ the album or subsribe for 14$ a month. A friend of mine is using this site. There are some doubts about legality here though. There are lots of people on the Internet including the site itself claiming that it's legal using a lot of disclaimers in their statements so i don't think they are totally sure.

It's not legal. The problem is that this website only has permission to sell the files to Russians (more exactly: In Russia), and even that is questionable, since the big record companies generally don't allow online music downloads without DRM.

You can buy mp3s at websites like these, and the risk is certainly smaller than when using P2P, but:

• Problems might arise later because legal authorities will most likely not accept allofmp3.com receipts as proof that you purchased some files
• The money you pay them most likely doesn't benefit the artist at all, not even in the small amount that they earn through regular album sales.

MikeEnRegalia wrote: Meddler wrote: MikeEnRegalia wrote: Firepuck wrote: After the record companies handcuff P2P sharing they will go after e-Bay for royalties, then shut down second hand record stores, start bringing lawsuits against garage sales, then sue your neighbour for playing music without headphones on, because hey, he's sharing music illegally. Mark my words! Nonsense. I'm sure he's being sarcastic, and its almost obvious. I hope so ... but I heard that kind of reasoning from many people, and some of them weren't joking at all. To me these "reasons" for doing ilegal filesharing are ridiculous: "I wouldn't have bought the album anyway, so my listening to the stolen files created no financial damage". That's wrong. It's not only not true, but even if one would really not have bought a single album if file sharing was technically impossible, it would still be wrong to do it. File sharing is stealing, and the above statement is the same as saying "I wouldn't have had the money to buy it anyway" when caught shoplifting. If the item was important enough to you to take the risk of stealing it, it must have some value to you. Another analogy is "I didn't like the movie anyway" when caught watching a movie without having a valid ticket.   "It's a good thing to steal the albums, because the artists don't earn anything from the sales anyway, and - in some Robin Hood like fashion - we must fight against the evil music industry which is exploiting the artists" That's a misguided and dangerous attitude. If you think that - go ahead, but don't complain when they sue the hell out of you.   "I don't use legal alternatives which employ DRM - it is limiting my use of the audio too much" Ok, you can't burn it to disc (at least the subscription based songs), some services provide only streaming, so you can't even save it to disk. But isn't the true purpose of these services to enable you to listen to the music? Looking back at my P2P "career" a couple of years ago, I see that 90% of the albums that I downloaded (and I downloaded A LOT) didn't make it into my collection in the end. Why even waste a CD-R on them? For $10/month you can listen to all tracks that are available on Napster - and that is a really good deal.

Hi Mike,

Yes, I was being sarcastic - I should have made that clear in my post. As I previously said:

"I hadn't bought a progressive rock CD in at least 15 years (still listen to my old vinyl) until I came upon this site and my interest in exploring the 'prog scene' exploded.

Do I use P2P - yes.

But in the last year and a half (since finding this site) I've also spent 100 times more on CD's than I did in the decade before finding this site."

And here in Canada (at least today) P2P is legal - the moral issue is another matter I will not comment on here. Bottom line is that my (illegal?) downloading has led to me purchasing many, many CD's I would never have know of, let alone bought.

The day P2P becomes illegal in Canada is the day I stop using it. Enough said on that topic, but I have a new topic to discuss!!!

Several developments have occurred in the industry that I really like and will hopefully stem the tide of illegal P2P downloading.

My brother asked me last week if I had ever heard of a group called IQ, and thanks to this site the answer was yes. He is a big Yes and Genesis fan and came across this group and started listening to MIDI files on their website - and on the weekend he bought his first IQ CD.

Other groups have music available for download on their websites - a perennial favourite of mine is Steve Hackett. His site has fully 30 songs available for download.

This site - OMG - you could download music for days (I know!) and fill CD after CD. I've made several various CD's with music just from this site.

Internet radio - a great boon for us progheads. Much has been said about the difficulty in finding music, just tune in and don't worry about it.

Internet video - love watching prog video (ie. google video, U tube).

In reality - I never need buy another CD. There is more music available legally on the internet than one could possible ever listen to.

Comments?

MikeEnRegalia wrote: Firepuck wrote: And here in Canada (at least today) P2P is legal - the moral issue is another matter I will not comment on here. Bottom line is that my (illegal?) downloading has led to me purchasing many, many CD's I would never have know of, let alone bought. The day P2P becomes illegal in Canada is the day I stop using it. Enough said on that topic, but I have a new topic to discuss!!! I read some articles that said that P2P downloading is legal ... but on most P2P platforms you can only download when you also permit uploading, and that is still illegal.

Hi Mike, as I have mentioned before - not in Canada... (yet)

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.

MikeEnRegalia wrote: Firepuck wrote: After the record companies handcuff P2P sharing they will go after e-Bay for royalties, then shut down second hand record stores, start bringing lawsuits against garage sales, then sue your neighbour for playing music without headphones on, because hey, he's sharing music illegally. Mark my words! Nonsense.

Actually in today's world there could be brainwashed people who would go that far...

 -- Ivan

Firepuck wrote: MikeEnRegalia wrote: Firepuck wrote: And here in Canada (at least today) P2P is legal - the moral issue is another matter I will not comment on here. Bottom line is that my (illegal?) downloading has led to me purchasing many, many CD's I would never have know of, let alone bought. The day P2P becomes illegal in Canada is the day I stop using it. Enough said on that topic, but I have a new topic to discuss!!! I read some articles that said that P2P downloading is legal ... but on most P2P platforms you can only download when you also permit uploading, and that is still illegal. Hi Mike, as I have mentioned before - not in Canada... (yet) 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.

Sorry, I did not consider this legal limbo ...