I think everyone who downloads stuff should read this its very important and whats even more scary is the other act Orinn Hatch is trying to get passed.
http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/10212
even scarier
ARG! Im in Connecticut too…
It’s not even the fact that I download music, which i use iTMS mostly for anyway now because its nice and cheap. Its more the fact that they can now find out who i am snaps fingers like that.
And that’s why file-sharing copyrighted stuff is bad 
But so is swearing so I guess that makes it O.K. again?
Swearing…stealing someone else’s work…I see a big difference :inc:
The funny thing about copy-protection nowadays and digital “theft”: it’s not really stealing.
But let me explain that a bit…
If you go into a store, pick up a candy bar, leave without paying for it, and enjoy it – you’re definetly stealing.
If you were to go into that same store, find that same candy bar, make an EXACT copy, leave the store, and enjoy it – how is that stealing?
It’s not theft in the traditional sense of the word, which is why it’s still such a grey area both socially and politically.
The artists, labels, and other industry folks aren’t being directly stolen from, their works are being copied/pirated. The only real loss of income in someone downloading a song is that they might not buy the CD – THAT’S IT. Other than that loss of a potential sale, the music industry stands to see minimal decline.
In fact, their sales ARE down, but only very slightly and they’ve been riding a recession YEARS before the big piracy boom in the US.
Downloading music is one of the best, free ways for a band to get promoted. Talk to about 95% of the music industry and they’ll tell you that most of their income doesn’t come from CD sales, but rather merchandise, concerts, and appearances. Think about it:
[INDENT] CD: $~13-17
T-Shirt: $~20
Concert ticket: $~35 (of course the bands don’t see more than 1/2 of that)
TV Appearance: varies, but is usually an ungodly sum for just a few minutes of dialogue.[/INDENT]
If I download a song and like it, I’ll usually go buy the CD. I can’t speak for everyone, but that is what a LOT of people do. The Internet is a great research tool and downloading music is just a deviance of online research, which is why some people still download or don’t feel right about paying $1 for an MP3 they may/may not like.
Bottom line: downloading isn’t going to stop ever, let’s be realistic. It’s a great way for bands to obtain free promotion and generate sales in markets they might never have been able to realize with a traditional PR blast.
Hey, you don’t hear much about book publishers filing suit for their works being placed online, do you? It’s copyrighted and protected by law just as music is (for the most part), so why don’t we hear from the book-ies of this country? Because they’re still selling books, even though you can find just about any book online for free. Just like the record industry is still selling its works, even though you can find most of it for free online.
:pirate3:
I think the second article is highly unrealistic. There’s no way they could take over hard drives etc. That’s absolutely rediculous. I wouldn’t be too worried about that one. Actually I’m not worried about any of this, if you’re not stealing music then there’s nothing to worry about. If you are, stop. Find something slightly less pointless to go to jail for and just bust out 15 bucks for a CD. I hate the RIAA though. I think people are just fighting a losing battle.
canada rules!
downloading-legal.
uploading-illegal [u americans do that for us to *legally * download]
cd’s are already all duplicates, instead of buying a cd, which is already just a duplicate, you’re getting it for free, thus not paying for the duplicates that you should be paying for by law
Did you even read my post?
My point was that they’re not going to feel a pinch the same way a store would if someone were to rip off a candy bar (or a CD, for that matter).
And how do you know if you’re going to like a CD without first listening to at least ONE song by a certain band? How do you hear that song if you live in an area that doesn’t play artists of that type, and they’re not on MTV (MTV sucks, btw).
One of your only options is to download a few songs, find out more about the band, and then go buy the CD. A lot of amazing bands aren’t supported by iTunes, Napster, [insert other arbitrary DL app], are NOT played on MTV or any music network (Fuse, MTV2, VH1, etc.), and do not get local radio play.
So what would you propose then? If my intent is to legally purchase a CD, but the only way to find out about the band(s) is by downloading a few tracks online, what other options do I or anyone else have?
One of my main points was that a lot of the times downloading and/or music piracy leads to real sales and more income for bands that might never have gotten it.
It’s like the college student who downloads a pirated copy of an Adobe/Macromedia product wiith the sole intent of learning how to use the software in a non-profit manner to better their job skills and in turn purchase the software themselves.
One of my favorite observations about the discussion of online piracy is that most people (ahem) seem to drop all counter-points and focus on one thing: “Yea, but it’s illegal and bad. Don’t break the law and be bad. I’m not going to break the law or be bad. That’s, like, bad.”
Most of the content on the Internet today either breaks international copyright laws (let’s just insert that copyrighted code/image/whatever into our stupid blog), is illegal (“I hate my teacher. She smells and is ugly”*), or is just completely unethical and “bad”.
Just give it an honest consideration instead of throwing up the legality flag. Think about things for a moment, then get back to me. (and if you do, try to actually read my post) 
**BP: **I’m not arguing the legality of music piracy, it’s all 100% illegal. My point is that making exact copies of music cannot be paralleled to common theft (ie. stealing a CD from a store) simply because the record industry isn’t technically losing anything other than a potential sale – they’re losing information, not a real-world artifact.
- – slander, libel, and defamation of character. All 100% illegal but done daily anyways. When you publish something to the web, it’s blanketed by the same laws as traditional print. Don’t believe me? Ask me about the State Trooper that came to my house because some friends were bad-mouthing a teacher on my message boards and the school (on behalf of said teacher) filed suit against me. (case didn’t make it very far since it’s all still such a legal uncertainty with no precedence)
If you want to sample a song, go to Amazon.com or even the artists’ sites where they provide you an avenue for either previewing one minute of a song or even the whole song from whichever album you are interested in purchasing.
While you may be an exception, most of the people that I have seen (on these forums and in real life) do not purchase CD’s after they have a great, digital replication stored on their computer. Aren’t you legally allowed to download something and keep it on your HD for 24 hours anyway?
If you don’t like the RIAA, don’t listen to music by RIAA artists. Resorting to stealing (even if it is a milder form of it) doesn’t seem like a better alternative to me when you have the opportunity to legally preview the songs.
WHOA, so its legal if you download a song, and delete it in 24 hours?
:hugegrin:
I’m not sure…that is what I think, but I haven’t been keeping with the file-sharing stuff for at least 4 years now.
Music piracy is wrong. Regardless of whether anyone loses any physical property, it is wrong. You are stealing something when you download music whether you want to admit it or not. First, there is the fact that when you buy a CD, you are not buying the music. You are simply buying the right to listen to to the music. The actual physical portion, the “compact disk” is simply a medium to enable you to do that. Downloading music is no different than taking something from a store because you were just “testing it out” with the intent of returning it later; it’s no different than ripping a website. It’s wrong. No matter what spin you put on it, it’s wrong.
Edit:
WHOA, so its legal if you download a song, and delete it in 24 hours?
That’s how it is with ROMs. I don’t know if it applies to other things as well.
I agree with newhopekenny. He sees things very similar as I do. Although, I have found new ways to get new music that are legal (some people may have seen my post about artistdirect.com, and the link in the thread to epitonic.com). But I never would have picked up the Jimmy Eat World cd (and later an earlier cd by them) if my brother hadn’t had two awesome songs on his computer. Same with Elliott Smith; same with almost ANY of the music I listen to now. I live in a small town and we get crap for music here. All country or basic rock or whatever. I hate MTV and all the mainstream crap around. So being able to listen to something before I drop a PENNY on it, that’s awesome.
As for ROMS, I had always read that was false info (about the 24 hr grace period). You must own the game to own the rom.
But I’m happy with the websites that are FINALLY getting in on the internet and letting people download music for free, even if it’s a couple songs, it not only makes me want to buy the cd, but I respect the band a lot more.
The Induce Act will be put under serious consideration on Thursday in the US Senate. If put into effect, it will outlaw the manufacturing and development of any equipment that can assist with copyright infringement. Not only would this outlaw P2P networks and effectively VCRs, but could potentially put the manufactures of everyday equipment such as hard drives, optical drives, cassette recorders and portable music players at risk.
they should ban cut, copy, and paste too.
i think the recording industry looks at it in terms of simple economics (seemingly unlimited supply driving the price down to effectively zero), so they try to control the supply through legal action; but the problem is in the long run, technology will always be ahead of the law. thus, we’ll see an eternal battle with the RIAA lagging behind.
what the RIAA should do is develop stronger public relations and regain the trust of the people developing and using the technology (mainly by lowering prices). by doing so, they can indirectly control the supply and increase the public’s willingness to pay.
Amen. DOWN WITH COPY AND PASTE!
We should all have keyloggers installed by the RIAA that lets them know whenever we CTRL+C.
It is nice to have sites that contain artist-sanctioned downloads:
http://www.purevolume.com is one of my favorites, and I’m far from happy about what happened to MP3.com.
ouch - the RIAA must be really pissed to mention something as rediculous as this. Banning hard drives and cd writers? Well, look on the bright side, you people might have some serious corporate muscle backing you on this one (such as western digital and LG, for example) who would most likely suffer greatly if this was to go through.
Sure the RIAA are out for the overall profit of the artists that they have under them, but this is just a little too much. I can’t remember who, but Much Music (canada’s MTV for those of you who don’t know) aired something about this a year ago and one of the guys on it said “So what if I only make $xx million an album where I used to make $y million more? I’m still making $xx million, which is a lot more than most people!”.
Well, I’m glad that I’m unaffected - because it would really suck to have my HD confiscated. I would also like to add that if it wasn’t for mp3’s I would know half of my favourite bands! Blindside, Rosesdead, and Stutterfly to name a few. I also wouldn’t have gone out and bought BOTH Alexisonfire albums and the Stutterfly album had I not heard their music! Same goes for the Foo Fighters and System Of A Down! Understandably, not everyone does this - but I by the albums because… well I don’t know, I like having them I guess. There’s something about actually owning something tangible that’s better than a bunch of scattered MP3’s. I mainly use the CD’s when I’m on the move and I have my CD player, instead of burning MP3’s. I use the MP3’s for listening at home.
Amazing how one filetype can make such a problem
I think i’ll store all my songs as .wavs now
I think music piracy would decline at least some if every single album ever created was made availible to be bought online. Most people would rather download something than get in their car, drive 10 minutes to the nearest Wal-Mart (or other CD selling outlet), pay $15 (more than the $9.99 for online), drive back, and then rip it onto their computer before they can listen to it.
Thats why I like programs like iTunes, but the problem is that they don’t have the selection I need. Where can I find the Kill Bill soundtrack online?
-~if labels manufactured singles, i would pay for music.~-
its just that i pay $15-$20 on an album, and there might be only two good songs on it. thats why i started downloading songs, i dont want the other 10 tracks that i dont listen to.