I rarely download anything illegally anymore but sometimes am forced to because the song is not available for download.
It's sad they're doing this, the RIAA. It reminds me of how Metallica were b*tching like little school girls when Napster first came out.. I never liked Metallica much anyways, especially after that. BTW, do they do the same thing for Movies????
If you're trying to stay strictly legal, you might want to be careful with that site, Aces. The U.S. has been cracking down on Russian mp3 sites: http://www.betanews.com/article/US_Official_AllofMP3_Must_Shut_Down/1160062471
The entire model of the music business is changing and the RIAA, like any monolith, doesn't want to change. The same industry that used to be mostly concerned with breaking the next Bob Dylan or Bruce Springsteen is now worried about market share. Bean counters have replaced music fans and multi-national media conglomerates have taken the place of large independent labels. Consider the fact that Atlantic Records and Motown Records, two relatively small independents in the 1960's, produced some of the most influential music of the era. Smaller labels like Casablanca, Arista and Island were responsible for the development of legends. The current climate makes that impossible. The industry is rapidly returning to the era of the indie label, but the one thing that major labels and commercial radio had going for them (still do) is the only thing missing from the new model: centralization. It used to be that the industry was governed by centralized distribution - you buy records at the record store where you get recommendations from the guy who knows what you like; you listen to your favorite DJ who spins the music he likes; you read one of a handful of major music publications. Today, there is no one place to get music and no one local authority to help you sift through it. There are dozens of places to hear new music and thousands of new songs online every day. Radio stations have regional or even national program directors who play homogonized music. There are literally hundreds of music blogs, vlogs and podcasts making it impossible to read all of them. Until there is a way to diffuse that information (web 2.0 is helping with RSS aggregators and blog tracking) in a location that makes it easy on the end user, the industry will stumble along halfway between the old model and the new one. The RIAA will continue to defend its copyrights and new independent bands will increasingly give things away. --- I'm not going to defend the RIAA, but keep in mind that the vast majority of bands signed to a label don't survive more than a single record. For every Metallica or Madonna, there are a thousand bands who are one and done. They are the one's that tend to be hurt most by downloading not only because of the loss of royalties, but because they are the first to be cut from label rosters when the labels suffer. Today, it is VERY difficult for indie bands to make a living. Many are going to part-time music careers, which is never good for the music because you don't get to spend as much time on it as is needed to improve. In addition, as a way to cut through the massive amounts of information out there, bands are resorting to gimmicks and in-your-face approaches to music that don't lend themselves to long careers. With all due respect to Panic! At the Disco, does anyone expect to hear them on the radio in 20 years? Maybe even more importantly, the long play format is dying. Bands are increasingly focused on singles because that is what people want. You can sell one song on iTunes and save money on recording costs, BUT it costs us great music. Some of the best recordings were often the unexpected moments that happened when the artist was just goofing off. With the demand for the hit single, bands are spending less time experimenting and more time crafting singles. That makes for a very dull artform. Just some things to consider.
It's been shown conclusively that it cost about 83 cents (this is two-four yeas ago, so this my be CHEAPER now. Time=cheaper manufacturing costs) to produce a CD. So WTF are people paying upwards of $20 to buy one? I remember when CDs first hit, the big promise was that they would eventually get cheaper than casette tapes because the manufacturing process would get more refined. I bought it because hey, a single disk VS a mechanical reel-to-reel tape was bound to be cheaper, right? F$&#(&$ the RIAA. They deserve their losing battle.
I've always wondered why I wouldn't feel as guilty from so easily downloading a song without paying than I would be if I had just walked into Cactus Music and Video and shoplifted singles. I mean, its basically the same thing; I guess it just doesn't seem like a big deal since its common.
This whole RIAA suing people thing is stupid. Aside from the middle school and high school kids who have no money and wouldn't be buying cds anyway, most of the downloaders end up buying the CDs if it's good/worth buying. obviously there those who just refuse to buy anything, but for the most part if you're music good, people will try to support you. It's the same with movies. If it's a blockbuster, people will go out and see it. r****ded movies like "epic movie" or "jackass 2 " (which was pretty funny btw) noone would go out and see even if you can't download it. btw, if you're in college you should just stick to using dc hubs that students run. The one at my school has ~5 TB of files. Yes that's Terabytes. It has pretty much everything from movies to music to games to solutions manuals for the textbooks we use at school. It's been up and down lately but when it gets shut down they just put up a new address. Spreads by word of mouth and I think theres about 300 regulars who are always connected to the hub. The best thing about it? You're getting over 1mb/sec because it's through the LAN. This also means noone outside can connect to it.
The reason you feel differently is the acts themselves are different. No matter how much the RIAA wants you to believe, copyright infringment is not theft. I am not saying CI is good or noble, but it is not theft. If you shoplifted singles there would be a physical good that is stolen and cannot be resold. The same cannot be said about a song that you download. You might as well say "I've always wondered why I wouldn't feel as guilty speeding on 610 as I would be about downloading a song."
Speaking of BS, have you heard the newest Arcade Fire album? It's very Sprinsteenish (in a good way, the early BS), it just came out last Tuesday (called the Neon Bible), and is very good. I think you'd like it. Also I'm wondering if you still think Bob Dylan scammed his way to the Grammy in 1998.
Does anybody actually know another person that has been sued by the RIAA? Has anybody themselves been sued?
The other thing they had going for them was planned obsolescence. The model they had going from Album to 8-track to cassette worked brilliantly. Then they stupidly thought they could keep it going with CDs and whatever came after that. They didn't realize that once people had music in digital form that it was no longer dependent on a media platform. Instead, users themselves could preserve the data and migrate it across media and time. They are trying to figure out how to put the toothpaste back in the tube, but it's not going to work. For example, I bought Who's Next in album, 8-track, cassette, and CD. I'll never buy it again because not only is it now on my hard drive, but I can use the same tools to play it at home on a nice stereo system and on the road through a crappy car stereo and through earbuds when I'm walking around or working out. After dropping literally thousands of dollars on the industry from the mid-70's through the early 90's, I have essentially dropped out altogether as I now have everything I care to listen to on my PC and in my iPod. I may buy new technology, but I will never have to buy content on a different media ever again. Suck on it record companies.
I never listened to them until just now and I have to say I'm impressed. Sounds like Bowie being backed up by the 70's version of the E Street Band. They don't have the songs that either Bowie or Springsteen had (or have), but who does? Thanks!
