How hard is it to go to a cd store that has listening stations? If you want a song, but not sure if you'll like the rest of the cd, there are easy and more ethical things to do to ensure that you won't be wasting your money than stealing it off the internet.
Huh? Taking posession of something isn't the same thing as copying something. The former deprives someone of something. In the second situation there is no loss...
Of course they do. That is why it is unethical to copy something instead of paying for it. I have never suggested otherwise. However it is also not unethical to copy something if there is no intention to pay for it as there is no loss in the latter case.
If there is a song I haven't heard in a while, or a new one that I want to hear, I do so. If I hadn't....'accquired'...the song, its no big deal to me. I'm not going to go out and blow 15 bucks just because I remembered a single song I used to like, regardless of whether P2P exists or not. I've never downloaded a whole CD before. And I even have DSL. P2P hasn't had much effect on what CDs I buy on a regular basis.
You are depriving the artists of their royalty fees, whether you agree they are unfair royalties or not. You are taking posession of their song without rendering anything (i.e. payment) for it nor receiving their permission to take the song - so yes, there is a loss, and yes, you are taking posession of something...their work and their property.
Nevermind the legal issues. Nevermind the ethical issues. Here's my concern with significant file sharing... More than 6 million users have been added to the roles at Morpheus according to a survey released today. That happened in just under one year. Online music sales have dropped 25 percent since last year. Personally, I think it couldn't happen to a nicer industry. However, here is my fear and, trust me, it is a legitimate fear. The record industry works this way: if you sell records, you get to make more records. If you don't, you flip burgers for the rest of your life. End of story. As the industry loses money, the bands and artists that get cut from rosters aren't Britney Spears, N'Sync or Kelly Clarkson. The bands and artists that get axed are John Mayer, Papa Roach, Blink 182, Limp Bizkit, Ben Folds...etc. The bands and artists that get whacked are the one's making most of the original music because labels know that pop shlock will always sell, but they refuse to take risks on bands that may need a record or two to develop. It's bad enough now. The more money they lose, the worse they get. Most music industry people believe that bands and artists like Bruce Springsteen, the Beatles, Elton John, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Pink Floyd, etc would NEVER have made it in the business had they attempted to succeed in the music industry today. They certainly would not have been able to branch out and make such stunning records like they did. For most of them like it is for artists today, it would be "Thank you for that one 5 million selling record. Your 15 minutes are up." As a musician, I know lots and LOTS of great players who, 15 years ago, still had to struggle in the business, but could make a living and were able to find a record deal out there. Today, not a chance. Why should any of us care? Simple. The way musicians make great music is the same way any of us become experts at what we do, they spend their time perfecting their craft. As a result, it takes years to really become good at what you do. In the current industry, you do not have time to get good so they release whatever you have and send you on your way. There are two sayings in the business that are extremely true: 1. You get 15 years to write the songs for your first record and 6 months to write the songs for your second. The reason so many artists get the famed sophomore jinx is right here. It is also the reason why so many 3rd, 4th and 5th records became instant classics. The artists had time to hone their skills. The chemistry of bands grow and they get tighter. Musical skills improve because of day-after-day of performing, writing and recording. No one expects pro athletes to improve without constant practice, weight training, etc. Musicians are no different. But, if you don't have the opportunity to improve... 2. The record industry doesn't sign anyone over 30. Well, unless of course you lie which is what most people do. In fact, the industry is getting younger. It is easier to manipulate an 18-year old than a 30 year old who knows he has talent. The days of bands like Dave Matthews are all but over because record labels know that bands like that are good enough and smart enough to control their own destiny. Translated, that means they want more money or more percentage points on their records. If you were in the business and could sell as many records with N'Sync, who you only have to pay .5 percent per CD sale, as you could with the band that gets 4 percent per CD sale because they write their own music, who do you drop??? It ain't N'Sync. I download songs on occassion but it is usually older songs I want to hear or songs to allow me to preview the CD (Foo Fighters for example). I'm not overly concerned with who does it or why. I don't really care. But, before everyone here jumps for joy and celebrates the newfound freedom of downloading and decries the copyrighting of ideas, remember that the more you do it, the more you contribute to the ****ification of music as a whole. If you want more manufactured boy bands and grrrl pop singers, keep right on downloading. That is ultimately the result. This is a business. The business isn't just going to keep churning out low-selling, highly downloaded artists. They just drop them and manufacture more artists they can control like American Idols. More profit for them. More crapoloa for us. By the way, they've begun tracking which artists get downloaded the most and, from what I've read, they are thinking about re-structuring contracts for artists based on how many free downloads they get. In other words, you could be directly contributing to the demise of your favorite artsits in the very near future. Enjoy.
FWIW, I have no problem with people downloading songs from artists who have no problem with you downloading their songs. I had a Napster account a long time ago, and the only songs I'd download were live songs from DMB and Widespread Panic just because I knew they didn't care about those songs being out there.
Excellent post Jeff. I agree completely. For those with any misgivings that they're not stealing...making a copy of a copyrighted work is a violation of the law. There are statutory damages and possible criminal implications.
Thanks. Funny thing is, I know you earn your living with the law, but the illegality of it doesn't bother me all that much. Plenty of us speed all the time or don't fully stop at a stop sign. The infraction for me isn't the issue. I just don't think people fully understand the ramifications of this particular action on the whole. There is a cause and effect to this that could actually result in destroying what they are downloading. If your favorite band disappears because they got downloaded too much, what do you do?
Jeff, you have a fine arguement for negotiating with terrorists. Go ahead, pay the ransom. They're still gonna kill your children. The RIAA is gonna shovel that Dylan album profit right into another Mariah Carey. The idea of a reasonable copyright has been obscenely perverted. 90 years is insane. The legal purpose of copyrights in the first place is to ensure the public benefit of an incentive for creativity. Otherwise, they would not exist. They do not exist in reality, they are only a legal concept. We have created a crime for thinking. I personally think we should go back to 10 years, like when the laws were first enacted. If you can't keep coming up with good material every ten years, sorry. The public no longer has an interest. The benefit of a recording contract is mass distribution and promotion, NOT income. Artist's income comes from touring, appearance fees, and future writing contracts once they get noticed and prove they have a product for a public. The trick is getting noticed. Metallica was no record industry darling. They couldn't buy airplay for 10 years. Fan distribution, street marketing and word of mouth built their empire. I don't see that the public has an interest in rewarding them with a string of royalties running up to and after death. They (We) DID have an interest in discovering them and noting their talent, and discovering and establishing new, creative ways we could use that creation.
Me either. I have sped and I have violated copyright law. In college I'd record a CD onto a tape so I could play it in my car. It's the same thing really. Without the enhanced copyright protection...Mickey Mouse would have fallen into the public domain already. It is that type of thing that we were hoping to avoid. Everything else goes along with it.
Follow note : Must say, personally, I have mostly stopped downloading with the death of Napster. Winmx too frustrating for me. Would love to hear of a new client, though! Also, when I do Dj work or remixes, I need originals. Not for a jazz sample dropped over a looped beat, but for extended cut and paste, mp3 still trouble at 190. So, I'm sure I'll be buying that new Santana, eg., just to work the beats. Ref, you're a pretty smart ****, like you note in your sig. I hope you're joking. That's a pretty good joke, if you were joking. Geez, by all means protect the mouse! Come on, surely you can come up with another mouse every ten years. Do you ever watch Looney Tunes on Sat mornings? Can you tell the good old ones, by Fritz Freling, et al, from the crappy machine product of the sixties and seventies, that just traded on the prefab characters and stock gags? Even my 5 yr old knows. WB turned genius into crap. I'd rather see Bugs in the public domain, too.
pasox: You don't know alot about the music industry. Any decent-selling artist will make 60 to 70 percent of his/her income directly tied to copyright - album sales, performance royalties from airplay, publishing, etc. Of the remaining 30 to 40 percent, very little actually comes from money made on tour. Most tours are designed to break even at best except of course for the gianganto tours like McCartney. Most tours pay for themselves and that's about it. The rest of the revenue comes from merchandising - t-shirts, etc. Eliminate copyright royalties and you essentially eliminate the vast majority of pay for the artist. As a result, they cannot spend their time honing their craft. They are too busy trying to earn a living. Besides, I'm not even talking about the big name artists here. For that matter, I'm not really even worried about most smaller acts. But, for a moment, tell me exactly how songwriters can survive? If you eliminate copyright for songwriters who do not perform but instead write and produce for other artists and rely solely or almost completely on money from royalties, what are they supposed to do? I've heard the "it's all free, man" thing about songs. Anyone who says that hasn't spent 8 hours every day for the past 15 years practicing, performing and recording. Music is a craft. It is honed and cultivated. It takes time and a ****load of money to do it. Besides, half the time it is about something very personal. I take it VERY personally when someone decides to take something I've worked on extremely hard and use it without asking. It would piss anyone off.
Actually it is something moestavern19 said in another thread. I can't believe that you state that me being smart must be a joke and then you turn around and say something like this. Why don't you make a project your work over the course of years...then market it successfully...and have me steal it from you a decade later while that property is still worth MILLIONS in revenue. Do you really think that Phil Collins shouldn't get paid when they want to exploit one of his songs in a beer commercial? OF COURSE HE SHOULD GET PAID!!!!!!! The Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny examples are good ones. those properties bring in millions still. They are worthy of protection because they are still viable properties. The concern about the mouse was that some jackass out there with artistic ability could draw an obscene Mickey Mouse cartoon. You may not be concerned about that but a good many people are. Even still these properties will eventually fall into the public domain. Also keep in mind that the United States has the least amount of artist protection via copyright out of any of our treaty partners. France is the most liberal. Had the mouse been created in France, it would likely NEVER fall into the public domain.
I don't read Wired regularly, but they have the most interesting articles. This one covers the Steamboat Willie Act...Lawrence Lessig's Supreme Showdown For the people who don't want to read 7 pages... On page 2 He takes particular delight in singling out the Walt Disney Company as the symbol of how the past is using its power to kill the future. The company was a major lobbying force behind the Sonny Bono Act, the law that Lessig is urging the Supreme Court to overturn. The measure was only the latest extension of copyright — which the Constitution explicitly dictates should be "limited" — from an original 14 years to an automatic 70 past the death of the creator. Most notably, the law protects Steamboat Willie, the first Mickey Mouse cartoon, from slipping into the public domain. (Lessig shows a clip of it in his PowerPoint presentation — fair use, one assumes.) The big problem, as Lessig sees it, is that continual extensions of copyright prevent anything new from entering the public domain. This is most ironic, notes Lessig, since Disney dredged the public domain for its most lucrative properties. A PowerPoint slide lists the examples, from Snow White to The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Because of the Bono Act, Lessig asserts, "no one can do to Disney as Disney did to the Brothers Grimm." On Page 5
I promise I won't go link crazy again... States settle CD price-fixing case By David Lieberman, USA TODAY NEW YORK — The five largest music companies and three of the USA's largest music retailers agreed Monday to pay $67.4 million and distribute $75.7 million in CDs to public and non-profit groups to settle a lawsuit led by New York and Florida over alleged price-fixing in the late 1990s. Rights issue rocks the music world By Edna Gundersen, USA TODAY Record companies see it as mutiny. Musicians call it an overdue rebellion. Either way, the artists' rights movement has set the stage for combat that could revolutionize the music industry. An Op/Ed by Slate on Music industry woes... http://slate.msn.com/?id=2069732
Counting classical music CDs, I have over 800 CDs. Only one, "The Top" by the Cure, was not bought at a store or from on-line. It was burned by my sister and given to me as a gift. People say that I'm crazy for not trying to download and do more burning, but I don't think it is right or fair to the artist. Plus I like collecting CDs, especially some that have great covers to them.
