Piracy, RIAA, Lawsuits

[DubCoffman62]

I buy most of my music from Amazon. Their downloads are at a reasonably high bit rate so they sound great! Highly recomended! :tongue2:

Yes, I use amazon too.

 

[Thump]

I buy most of my music from Amazon.

HA HA HA you buy music!

 

[BuckeyeFlorida]

Hell no! I still use my 8 track cassettes!

Screw you... :) I see your 8-tracks and raise you music reel-to-reel.

 

[Muck]

Screw you... :) I see your 8-tracks and raise you music reel-to-reel.

Off topic but that reminds me that I have a bunch of reels of old recordings of family musicians that I really should get digitized.

 

[sparcboxbuck]

Ya know... I don't want to sound like a prick or anything... but I have friends in the music business. Some of those friends are names that most of you know. These friends are people that you would assume to be well taken care of based on how well they are known.

Fact of the matter is, and this is a position that every one of them have shared with me over the last few years... the music business has always been fucking brutal. But now, the ability for artists' hard work to be freely available for download takes money out of their hands. You really should understand that it is their livelihoods. It is how they put food on their tables. It is what gives them the ability to write the next song you download. How would you feel if the major contributor to your paycheck all of a sudden decided to stop contributing... maybe you'd be ok with it, but you'd be looking for another source of employment, eh?

Do as you wish... but understand that for every song that you download without paying for it is money out of the pocket of the person who created it. If you like it enough to download it... at least support the artist who wrote it so that you may have another opportunity for something that you should enjoy.

Again, not passing judgment on you... just hoping that you realize that your actions have significant consequences for others... which will have significant consequences for you as well.

Thanks for honestly considering what I just wrote.

 

[Muck]

sparco - It doesn't take money out of the hands of your friends who are musicians. It takes money out of the hands out of the middlemen (record labels) who fuck over musicians by not properly reimbursing them for their work.

If you want your friends to make more money as musicians teach them how to use alternate distributions methods to get their work into the hands of appreciative fans.

Most musicians would be better off financially to make their music available for free online and ask for donations from those who like their work than they'll be by signing a contract with a record label who will then own the rights to their work.

 

[DubCoffman62]

Ya know... I don't want to sound like a prick or anything... but I have friends in the music business. Some of those friends are names that most of you know. These friends are people that you would assume to be well taken care of based on how well they are known.

Fact of the matter is, and this is a position that every one of them have shared with me over the last few years... the music business has always been [censored]ing brutal. But now, the ability for artists' hard work to be freely available for download takes money out of their hands. You really should understand that it is their livelihoods. It is how they put food on their tables. It is what gives them the ability to write the next song you download. How would you feel if the major contributor to your paycheck all of a sudden decided to stop contributing... maybe you'd be ok with it, but you'd be looking for another source of employment, eh?

Do as you wish... but understand that for every song that you download without paying for it is money out of the pocket of the person who created it. If you like it enough to download it... at least support the artist who wrote it so that you may have another opportunity for something that you should enjoy.

Again, not passing judgment on you... just hoping that you realize that your actions have significant consequences for others... which will have significant consequences for you as well.

Thanks for honestly considering what I just wrote.

I agree, I know people in the same position. I always buy my music unless it's something that isn't available anymore and then I'll use a sound recorder if I find it on youtube. My main reson though is they're really coming down hard on this now and it worth the headache to not pay the buck for a download. Muck makes a great point too. Musicians need to get together and figure out a way to distribute their music without the help of the record labels. The problem is that the record labels pour a lot money into these bands too, not only to record them but to promote them. It's a double edged sword.

 

[Buckeye513]

Do as you wish... but understand that for every song that you download without paying for it is money out of the pocket of the person who created it.

No it isn't. This is based on the RIAA logic that 1 download = 1 lost sale. I have thousands of songs on my computer. I don't have thousands of dollars under my mattress to spend on music. If I couldn't download it, I'd just have a lot less shit to listen to.

If you like it enough to download it... at least support the artist who wrote it so that you may have another opportunity for something that you should enjoy.

I support the artists I like by going to see them perform when they're nearby and I can afford it. Incidentally, I wouldn't know anything about most of the bands that are cheapest and easiest to see if I hadn't downloaded their music.

 

[scott91575]

I just listen to Pandora. Free, and it picks the music I like. I rarely get into a mood where I have to listen to a specific song, and if I do, you can find that free by simply doing a Google search. The only thing I have is an ipod for the gym, but I have plenty of music on that from all my CD's from back in the day (oh, the old CD clubs....I have hundreds from those days).

As for downloads, there are plenty of direct download sites for piracy. I won't get into them all since I pretty much stream most of my media.

As for getting into trouble, unless you use a torrent site or the old school download services (where you upload your library) they won't touch you. Anything where you distribute music out can get you into huge legal problems, although highly unlikely. As long as you don't distribute the song, it is only a minor fine, and not worth their time to go after you.

As for legal sites, it all depends on what you are looking for, but I am not and expert on them due to my points above.

 

[jlb1705]

Ya know... I don't want to sound like a prick or anything... but I have friends in the music business. Some of those friends are names that most of you know. These friends are people that you would assume to be well taken care of based on how well they are known.

Fact of the matter is, and this is a position that every one of them have shared with me over the last few years... the music business has always been fucking brutal. But now, the ability for artists' hard work to be freely available for download takes money out of their hands. You really should understand that it is their livelihoods. It is how they put food on their tables. It is what gives them the ability to write the next song you download. How would you feel if the major contributor to your paycheck all of a sudden decided to stop contributing... maybe you'd be ok with it, but you'd be looking for another source of employment, eh?

Do as you wish... but understand that for every song that you download without paying for it is money out of the pocket of the person who created it. If you like it enough to download it... at least support the artist who wrote it so that you may have another opportunity for something that you should enjoy.

Again, not passing judgment on you... just hoping that you realize that your actions have significant consequences for others... which will have significant consequences for you as well.

Thanks for honestly considering what I just wrote.

No it isn't. This is based on the RIAA logic that 1 download = 1 lost sale. I have thousands of songs on my computer. I don't have thousands of dollars under my mattress to spend on music. If I couldn't download it, I'd just have a lot less shit to listen to.
I support the artists I like by going to see them perform when they're nearby and I can afford it. Incidentally, I wouldn't know anything about most of the bands that are cheapest and easiest to see if I hadn't downloaded their music.

A few things...

I've read before that most musicians in a traditional arrangement actually make pennies on the dollar for each copy of their music sold. On the other hand, these same musicians make far more money touring and selling band merchandise. If you want to support a particular artist, go to one of their shows and spend some money at the merch table.

Also, there are plenty of artists out there who have a much different view about file sharing and free downloads. They use it as a tool to build buzz around their music, to get it into the hands of people who otherwise would not have heard it.

I am a person who does a little bit of both. I download music as a way to preview and filter. I listen to mostly independent artists (conveniently, many not a part of the RIAA), and it's stuff you can't usually hear on terrestrial radio (at least not around here). At heart though, I enjoy having a physical copy of the music I like. I can rip in lossless and it serves as a physical backup to my digital library.

I buy a lot of used CDs. Used Kids, Shake It, Half Price Books - if I'm not careful on some days I can drop over $100 on nothing but used CDs $7 and under each. I have never heard a musician or a record company executive complain about the resale of their music, but it is very legal and as far as I know they don't see a cent of the money from sales in the secondary market. If that's the case, why all the hand-wringing over a "lost sale" as a result of a digital download, but not over a "lost sale over the purchase of a used CD?

This is purely a guess on my part, but if I think back on my music buying decisions of the last ten years, I'd say that the number of CDs that I've bought as result of having downloaded it first to preview it outnumbers the ones I would've bought regardless about 10:1. That includes just about all of my favorite artists. I probably never would have bothered if I hadn't been able to hear what I'd eventually be buying first.

 

[Dryden]

If you want to support a particular artist, go to one of their shows and spend some money at the merch table.

Also, there are plenty of artists out there who have a much different view about file sharing and free downloads. They use it as a tool to build buzz around their music, to get it into the hands of people who otherwise would not have heard it.

This.

I had never heard of Led Zeppelin before, but since I downloaded fourteen of their albums, I now not only have discovered their great music, but also can afford a ticket to catch them live next time they play Nationwide Arena.

 

[scott91575]

I buy a lot of used CDs. Used Kids, Shake It, Half Price Books - if I'm not careful on some days I can drop over $100 on nothing but used CDs $7 and under each. I have never heard a musician or a record company executive complain about the resale of their music, but it is very legal and as far as I know they don't see a cent of the money from sales in the secondary market. If that's the case, why all the hand-wringing over a "lost sale" as a result of a digital download, but not over a "lost sale over the purchase of a used CD?

This is one of the issues I have with digital downloads. You can't resell them. As noted, I am not big on downloading music. Yet I download games. In the old days, with physical media (still common for consoles) you could use it and resell it. Yet with digital download sites you cannot resell the product (even physical copies for PC are now tied to your account and cannot be sold, it just saves download time). I would have more of an issue with pirates if this could be done. Yet they sell you a product you must keep for life. Nothing else physical is like that.

I still do it out of convenience combined with the fact Steam often has great bargains on games you can't find elsewhere (essentially making up the for the fact you can't resell it). Yet not being able to resell the rights to a digital download lessens my distaste for pirating.

 

[3074326]

I used to be in a band. We weren't big, but we had a nice following. Enough of a following that gave us enough money to afford a solid PA system (including mixer), a trailer big enough to haul all of our equipment for a tour, and enough money for a tour for a couple weeks (which also resulted in us making money - taking gas, hotels, etc into account).

We gave our shit away for free. We URGED people to download our stuff. We were not signed, but we would've urged people to download if we were. We used downloading as a tool to get our name out there. We sold t-shirts, stickers, patches, tickets, etc. because of those free downloads. We did pretty well for a handful of high school/early college kids. We were also smart about it, which I figure a lot of bands aren't.

I thank everyone who downloaded our stuff for free, since I got the band fund when we ended the band.

People should do what Radiohead did. Just let everyone download the album and pay however much they want for it.

 

[Muck]

I have never heard a musician or a record company executive complain about the resale of their music

I have. The recording industry has long fought against any and all fair use by consumers.

it's the same people who brought us....

If it were up to the RIAA they would be legally entitled to deduct money from your checking account automatically each and every time you play a song.

I had never heard of Led Zeppelin before...

Before what? 1970?

 

[Wells4Heisman]

I still buy cds... can't duplicate the quality.