This whole "protest movement" thing is what's laughable. Do you honestly expect someone to believe that all the people taking files from Napster clients was some sort of "protest"? It was people taking stuff for free illegally knowing the chances of them getting caught was miniscule. Now if you were to say "the thievery caused the record industry to re-think its position on 'Net-based distribution of music", ok, I'd give you that. ------------------ NBA Draft Lottery is May 20th. Start praying now.
Rosa Parks and other African Americans had their civil rights as humans compromised. What rights-abuse are Napster users collectively protesting? Actually no; if I were an American citizen, I would respect their rights to not go to war. It should be their human right to not go. See Rosa Parks remark above. These are 2 flimsy analogies at best. Of course I don't. As long as the downloads are legal content, I can't object to it. You are correct in the case of the Civil Rights movement. I have no idea whose "rights" were compromised by the music industry here. Supply and demand dictated they could charge you ridiculous fees because "you" continued buying them. Had you stopped buying them (perfectly legal), they would've had to lower their prices or do something else. The Napster "revolution" had nothing to do with civil rights violations, human rights violations, or anything even remotely close. It had everything to do with people stealing (and as you said, not in all cases) because they didn't want to pay. ------------------ NBA Draft Lottery is May 20th. Start praying now.
All I can say is that I downloaded songs from at least 6 different artists from Napster. Since then, I've bought at least 6 CDs. Napster is a great tool for sampling music. I'd like to see proof that artists' profits have been harmed since the creation of Napster. ------------------ WIN NOW! The Protrolls.com message boards! Hey, I've got posts now! Feel free to join in the trolling fun! Protrolls.com!
I don't pretend to understand most of the arguments made for both sides. I have no experience w/the music industry other than being a customer. All I can say is that my CD purchasing actually doubled after I began using Napster because I found artists that I might not ordinarily have heard that I liked, and because it allowed me to verify my strict "2-song" rule when buying Compact discs easier than if I had to listen to the radio. I can only speak to my experiences, but w/o Napster, my CD purchases will drop. ------------------ Founder and President of the Houston Homers Club(HHC) - Are you a homer? Join now! The Rockets will be NBA champions. Believe.
Why should it matter? If I take something from a store and the store makes higher profits the following year despite my taking that one item, does it somehow make me innocent? ------------------ NBA Draft Lottery is May 20th. Start praying now.
ZRB: What DOD said. ZRB & Puedlfor: To be honest, I would not discourage the use of Napster for preview of music and I don't think any sane artist would either. The issue is what you do with that music once you download. If you buy the CD as a result, great. If you just throw it away because you didn't like it, fine. IMO, that is no different than the radio or listening to cuts at the record store. Infringement, IMO, occurs when you replace a CD purchase with a download, not when you just listen for the purpose of previewing. Even I can recognize the advantages of that, but you can't regulate who downloads for preview and who does it for keeps. This does bring up an interesting point, however. If you really want to stick it to the greedy music industry, why are you even bothering with Napster? Downloading artists who are paid and promoted by the music industry isn't exactly being rebellious. Napster gives you access to music you already have access to through the radio, television and other avenues. Big deal! Why not try really circumventing the industry and listening to some UN-signed artists who are trying to make it in the business? If you ARE really just in it for the music (and as a way to sock it to the greedy industry), hit the RIAA where it really hurts by downloading artists who they cannot profit by. Places like www.MP3.com have thousands of unsigned acts and they actually get paid when you download. It is free and perfectly legal. In fact, they ENCOURAGE you to do it. Now, THAT is rebellious. ------------------ So, I took the million dollars and bought a steam shovel...
Except we keep going around the merry-go-round. When I take something from a store it cannot be sold by the store. When I copy an mp3 the artist can still make money from the purchase of the CD. You cannot compare intellectual property with physical property!!! They are two distinct things! There is a difference between copying and theft. DoD, this is an example I brought up earlier on this BBS. My house hosted a party a while ago. I did not have much dance music so I downloaded some MP3's and played some at the party. If I did not download the MP3's I would still have not purchased the CD's. I would have played different music. So is this stealing? If so, who did I steal from? What did he/she/it lose? Surely someone has to lose something in order for it to be stolen, right? ------------------
Dylan-brilliant. Jeff- How many people actually pirate music? Not everyone is a computer wizz. I couldn't burn Napster music onto a CD if I wanted to. I bet that 80 percent of Napsters use the program to preview music. Until the music industry shows concrete proof of the program harming profits, it should remain unfiltered. ------------------ WIN NOW! The Protrolls.com message boards! Hey, I've got posts now! Feel free to join in the trolling fun! Protrolls.com!
ZRB- you should use EZ CD Creator 4.0 - all you need to do is drag and click your .mp3 files and it automatically converts to .wav files for audio CD format. ------------------ "Oh No..." -Bill Walton in 97 just before Stockton's buzzer beater
Your argument would work if everyone went out and bought the CD after they had downloaded the mp3. But unfortunately I'm gonna take a wild guess and say everyone that downloads song A won't go buy the CD with song A on it. Call it a hunch. I'm going to guess now that since that CD wasn't bought, it is now a lost sale for the company that published it. The end-user now has a commodity that they have not paid for. What you "took" was a sale. Don't try to take me for a ride on your merry-go-round. These arguments are exactly why I stopped downloading mp3's unless they're explicitly stated as being a free download. I had no valid argument for doing what I was doing. It all ended up being "yeah, but those damn record companies... yeah, but they've been screwing us over for years... yeah, but I'm not reeeeeeeally taking anything right?" In reality it was just a free way of getting music I wanted to get. ------------------ NBA Draft Lottery is May 20th. Start praying now.
When I used Napster, there were thousands of libraries available, and there was at least 1-2 terabytes of music files available. If someone showed you how to create a CD, it's not as if it's something difficult. It's download, drag-n-drop, then wait. Again, I have no idea why it would matter if it's .000000000001% of the public or 99.999999% of the public. You somehow want to equate the magnitude of the crime by the number of offenders. A crime is a crime no matter who or how many commit it. Unless you can provide actual proof, that is a baseless statement. How about if I use your own contrived stats against you? You stated 80% of the people downloading songs do it for preview purposes. Tell me what the other 20% are doing? Even if 1 person in that 20% represents lost revenue due to digital downloads, you have your proof. It was a profit-loss. I don't care if it's $500,000 of music or $9.99 worth of music. ------------------ NBA Draft Lottery is May 20th. Start praying now.
So random numbers aren't good enough for ZRB but you're allowed to take wild guesses and call them a hunch? Whatever floats your boat man... Note that I never once stated that it is okay to blanket download MP3's, cause I don't think it is. I only think it is okay if it does not contribute to the loss of sales of an artist. Maybe everyone who downloads MP3's wouldn't have bought the album anyway. Maybe they want a preview. Maybe they are unethically downloading. But it is very irresponsible of you to claim that all downloads of MP3's are theft. But if they weren't going to buy the album in the first place, there was no sale. Therefore, by definition, there is no loss of sale! You didn't answer my earlier question to you. Do you consider my downloading of party music theft? It's a simple question. Another question: say I download a John Coltrane MP3. Is that theft? He's dead and will obviously receive no monetary benifit if I buy an album. Is that okay? ------------------
dylan/ZRB: I'll answer it this way. If I wrote a song (me personally) that made it online because of someone else's ripping of it and it became available. You decided you'd like to have it for yourself but you know that I would know who downloaded it. You also knew that I had asked that no one download it and if they wanted a copy, I had it available for sale on my CD. Now, knowing me and my objections, would you still download it? What if I was your best friend and his record label required that CD's were purchased rather than downloaded for free? His band wouldn't let him give anything away either. You HAD to purchase it if you wanted to have it permanently. He asked you not to. Would you do it anyway? Remember that this doesn't preclude you from listening to "snippets" of the MP3 or Real Audio versions, but it does preclude you from downloading the entire CD for keeps on your hard drive or on a CD. How would you explain to someone you knew that you just didn't want to pay? If they said that THEY considered it stealing, wouldn't it be disrespectful not to follow their wishes just because you want the song? How does taking it from someone you know who has asked you not to differ from taking it from someone you don't who has asked you not to? It may not be stealing to you but it is stealing to the person who owns it and that is really at the heart of the argument. ------------------ So, I took the million dollars and bought a steam shovel...
Do you consider my downloading of party music theft? According to US copyright law, "copying" (from a CD or record YOU DON'T OWN) of any copywritten recorded work for the purpose of personal or commerical use is forbidden and considered infringement. I think the real question is, what did you do for party music BEFORE Napster? ------------------ So, I took the million dollars and bought a steam shovel...
I don't care about lowered profits for the music business. I don't care if the artists are getting screwed. It doesn't matter to me. I am sick of paying $16 for CDs. Sick of being forced to buy entire albums when I only want one or two tracks. Napster is changing this stuff. Because of Napster I can subscribe to music for a $4.95/month fee. Because of Napster, record industries have developed a standard for transmitting secure digital music. The stuff I am concerned about is changing. I now have more options in how I acquire music. This is all I ever wanted. I don't give a rats ass about lowering the record industry's profit, or how much the artist's are getting screwed. I just want more choice in acquiring music. I have more choice now. Napster worked. Other entities besides the artist can make and are making profit on concerts today. Are you trying to say that it's only profit if earned by the artist, otherwise it's an expense? When The Woodlands Pavilion puts on concerts, they make a profit. When SFX promotes concerts, they make a profit. These are real profits. Multiple pennies of profit exist and were earned by Pavilion and SFX. If The Woodlands Pavilion makes a net gain from a show, they profited from that concert. I can understand that Jeff speaks from the perspective of the artist, so in his view, perhaps promoters and venues are expenses. But when a company undertakes a business venture and realizes a net gain, they have a made a profit. So when The Woodlands Pavilion puts on a show, and they realize a net gain, they've made a profit. This is a stupid semantic argument, but Jeff, to say "Neither concert promoters or venues make a cent of profit from concerts" is absurd. Of course venues and promoters profit from putting on concerts.
One is based on common sense. The other is based on pure speculation. Both are guesses. Except I actually know people that download mp3's and don't buy cd's. I never said that. Quote the exact statement where I said that. As a matter of fact, I can show the post in this thread where I said exactly the opposite. Care to take me up on the offer? And "unethically downloading"... what a sweet, kind name for it. This statement is about as laughable as it gets. There are those that would not go out and buy a $3000 graphics package simply because they can't afford it. But if you were to give them an avenue to download it for free (Warez boards), they would. Does that make it legal? No. All you're saying is give me a means to steal and I will, but otherwise I wouldn't have paid for it anyway. Your argument is weak. I've answered. You just happened to keep beating around the bush coming up with excuses. I don't care if it's party music, movies, or the soundtrack of the 1999 Grand Poobah Parade Live. If it's copyrighted material and the publishers have not authorized you to download it for free, then it is theft. Can I put it any more plainly? Of course I know that there are some out there that actually use the tool as a means of previewing, and I wish the recording companies would realize that. The argument of these people are the only one I've heard that's rational. This stuff about "well I wouldn't have bought it anyway" is foolish because anybody can say that. ------------------ NBA Draft Lottery is May 20th. Start praying now.
I don't give a rats ass about lowering the record industry's profit, or how much the artist's are getting screwed. I just want more choice in acquiring music. I have more choice now. Napster worked. So much for the rebellion. Actually, I have NO problem with subscriber services. Radio, essentially, is a subscriber service except that they don't charge you for it, they charge advertisers, but, ultimately, the music is paid for. If you don't care how much money the record companies make, why all the arguing over the "freedom to download" and all that other crap? Why not just say you wanted a subscriber download system? They have those. But when a company undertakes a business venture and realizes a net gain, they have a made a profit. So when The Woodlands Pavilion puts on a show, and they realize a net gain, they've made a profit. This is a stupid semantic argument, but Jeff, to say "Neither concert promoters or venues make a cent of profit from concerts" is absurd. Of course venues and promoters profit from putting on concerts. The Woodlands Pavillion is hired by the promoter who is hired by the artist. Therefore, the artist ultimately determines the transaction. I never argued that those other people aren't making money. However, they wouldn't be in business if it weren't for the artist in the first place. You're right. It is a stupid semantics argument. ------------------ So, I took the million dollars and bought a steam shovel...
Coltrane is dead, but his family isn't. Most of the time, the family gets the money. At least to the best of my knowledge. ------------------ Nuggets4 Today the Nuggets announced that Dan Issel would be back as head coach next season. In related news, the NBA announced that the Nuggets have been mathematically eliminated from the 2002 NBA playoffs already.
I don't think we'd have seen changes in the record industry without Napster. We certainly wouldn't have seen them come along so fast. Bertlesmann never signs that deal with Napster if there's no Napster. SDMI wouldn't exist without Napster. Napster worked. It effected change. People simply refraining from buying CDs would not have effected the same changes, and certainly wouldn't have effected changes so fast. People have hated the record industry for years. People have always had the ability to refrain from buying pre-recorded music. Years and years of refraining from buy music had no effect. Napster has only been around since January 1999. Napster forced the record industry to change their business model in less than 2 years. An unqualified success.
Kinda, I mean, I wear one of their T-Shirts. ------------------ www.swirve.com "Pre-born, you're fine, pre-school, you're f*****."-George Carlin
