well how about all those blockbuster people, they CHARGE MONEY so you can borrow it, then i take it home and show it to my wife her mom and dad and sister her two children and my three children (that's nine right?) certainly someone in this instance can be fined or better yet locked away for a suitable period of time.
you do realize, of course, that those blockbuster poeple have a deal with the publishers, right?
you do realize, of course, that those tapes the blockbuster people are renting are not the same as the tape you buy at he store?
you do realize, of course, that those blockbuster people paid far more for that copy of the tape than you would? somewhere in the range of $100, sometimes more... this way the movie industry ensures itself of a reasonable amount of royalties from the rental
you do realize, of course, that those blockbuster poeple have a deal with the publishers, right?
you do realize, of course, that those tapes the blockbuster people are renting are not the same as the tape you buy at he store?
you do realize, of course, that those blockbuster people paid far more for that copy of the tape than you would? somewhere in the range of $100, sometimes more... this way the movie industry ensures itself of a reasonable amount of royalties from the rental
I am very disappointed to hear about the crippling of iTunes 4 in the latest update. Not everyone's family lives in the same subnet. I have family across the US, and I loved being able to listen to eachother's music via iTunes. Here I'd convinced my parents to switch to a Mac in large part to the open policies, and the concept that not every customer is automatically a criminal.
While this is certainly the prevelent mindset at Apple, it's sad to see such a huge leap backwards in your products funtionality.
I hope you can find a better solution to the legitimate piracy concerns other than the assumption that no one can be trusted.
Next time do your homework before you go ranting. This is not a step backwards, you cant prise Apple for setting up the best online music store, then abuse them for fixing a security hole. You do realise that the way it was constitutes an internet radio staion - for which you should pay royalties for every song that gets played from your iTunes.
As for you family in the US then yes I agree that sharing tunes is nice - so get your whining butt over to google and lookup VPN info. Which is the correct way of doing this type of thing.
FFS some of you want the moon on a stick - delivered by Apple!!
actually, i need to correct myself on this. this used to be the way rentals operated. i did a little poking around and discovered that's not the case anymore. now blockbuster pays a lower rate for the tapes, but they send 40% of all rental monies to the studios.
so, the studios are still getting a cut of all rentals.
actually, i need to correct myself on this. this used to be the way rentals operated. i did a little poking around and discovered that's not the case anymore. now blockbuster pays a lower rate for the tapes, but they send 40% of all rental monies to the studios.
so, the studios are still getting a cut of all rentals.
Nevertheless, if you rent a DVD it's still illegal to have more than eight people watching it, even in the privacy of your own home.
Nevertheless, if you rent a DVD it's still illegal to have more than eight people watching it, even in the privacy of your own home.
very true. i was originally replying to the post that made a connection between iTunes internet streaming and blockbuster rentals, assuming that video rentals were the same and that the movie industry made nothing more off the rental business than the original cost of the cassette/dvd.
This just sucks..period. I use it to listen to my own FREGGIN' music from my own FREGGIN' house at MY own FREGGIN' work. I don't want to make CDs of all my LEGAL mp3's, so I streamed. I guess I was just naieve to take the CD's I had made back to work. I run them of the CD so they don't have to go on the puter.I guess either "A." I won't upgrade "B." I won't upgrage til' I absolutely have to. "C." I will find another way to stream my music to my FREGGIN' self. I do not appreciate being lumped together with the slick willies out there who figured out how to copy the stream. I applaude them for their creativity..but do not condone copying what is not yours. There was a time when that opinon was different. College days,when I was broke. I have been out of College for a long time now..and enjoy music-w/o the likes of napster style crap. I think the only way to get things better, is to fight for the artists to get more control of their own music. The artists take all the risks..and the record industry only fronts money..if the band makes it..great for the record industry..and yea alittle bit for the artist. We need to fight for more control to be given to the people who take the actual risk. If the band fails..then the band is stuck working at taco bell and lawn services til' those monkies have their investment back. Recording PIGS. Think, from what I have found, the artists get a really SMALL SMALL crappy peice of the pie. LIKE LESS THAN A DOLLAR AN ALBUM! You, We spend 16-20-ish bucks on a CD..and the artist get a FUGGIN' DOLLAR??!?! We fight to give more control to the artists..in turn they give their fans more fun. So love your products Apple, and thank you for stereo-typing me and lumping me in with the offending martians who ruined the sweet taste of fun! Not all of us are Pirates..and not all of you (hopefully) have your heads up your crevasses! Think different, not like MS. What a step backwards. I'll never switch platforms..but please for god's sake, don't keep screwing us for a few people's F-in mistakes. JUST THINK BEFORE YOU TAKE AWAY COOL STUFF. DOH! I AM SOO BENT RIGHT NOW!!
If you had to choose between internet music sharing and iTunes music store, which would it be? I think the majority would choose iTMS.
You can always start FTP, Windows File sharing or Personal File sharing. It will be less convenient, as you'll lose all your playlists, ratings, last played etc., but you'll still get the songs.
actually, i need to correct myself on this. this used to be the way rentals operated. i did a little poking around and discovered that's not the case anymore. now blockbuster pays a lower rate for the tapes, but they send 40% of all rental monies to the studios.
Wow... I too didn't know that the movie rental industry had switched business models. This makes me curious; do the studios get a cut of late fees? I'm not sure if its still true, but at one time, blockbuster was making more money from late charges than from actual rentals.
Also, about that 8 person limit... is that total or concurrent viewers?
Back on topic:
I think Apple is taking the right stance on this issue. There is a tradeoff between encouraging creative endeavor with economic incentives and allowing free information flow. No matter how they address the issue, a non-insignificant percentage of people will be dissatisfied.
While there is room for improvement, I think that iTunes is still the gold standard. It provides the music industry with profits on the sale of copyrighted material while still allowing users convenient control over their music library. Yes, there are some technological hurdles to completely streamlining this convenience.
Take a step back and look at what iTunes has accomplished. With a single window, yes with one window, you can now do nearly everything music related. (Aside from splicing tracks) This is absolutely mind-boggling when compared to any other media. It?s a minor concession, being unable to give away music to the rest of the planet with the click of a single button. Perhaps we?ve forgotten how inconvenient music collections used to be in comparison. If anything, we should still be thanking apple.
Think, from what I have found, the artists get a really SMALL SMALL crappy peice of the pie. LIKE LESS THAN A DOLLAR AN ALBUM! You, We spend 16-20-ish bucks on a CD..and the artist get a FUGGIN' DOLLAR??!?!
Actually, the (major label) artist grosses a dollar, but they net considerably less than that, because the full cost of the album, tour, videos, etc. (all of which are set by the studios) comes out of the artist's hide.
If you have a standard major label contract, and you sell 2 million CDs, you do not make $2 million. You'd be lucky to earn $30K. Most artists don't sell anything like 2 million CDs, so they go on tour (and hope that the label doesn't saddle them with a really expensive light show) and earn money that way.
It's about duplication! If you and I and my mom's only son can all listen to the same song from the same source, that's legal. It's the duplication of the source that allows you to listen to the song away from the original source that is illegal. Someone said that the artist gets $1.00 of every $18.00 we spend on a CD. If three out of every five people that possess (I was going to saw own, but that implies spend money) a CD have "burned" that CD then the artist only get's fourty cents on average.
It's about duplication! If you and I and my mom's only son can all listen to the same song from the same source, that's legal. It's the duplication of the source that allows you to listen to the song away from the original source that is illegal.
Absolutely not. Copyright is concerned with publication - that is, making things available to the public. Piracy means unauthorized publication. If I buy a book and run 10,000 copies of it, and put them in my storage room, I have not broken any law. If I give the book and all 10,000 copies of it to to the same person, I have not broken any law.
If I give one copy to a friend, I have (under the 1976 law) committed a de minimus violation, which was fair use and legal (and might still be - I've never had the stomach to read the DMCA end to end, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't say much about physical books).
Quote:
Someone said that the artist gets $1.00 of every $18.00 we spend on a CD. If three out of every five people that possess (I was going to saw own, but that implies spend money) a CD have "burned" that CD then the artist only get's fourty cents on average.
As I've already said, this is zero-sum logic, and provably false.
Besides, if a major label contract exists that actually gives the artist forty cents of profit per CD, I'd be astonished. Labels profit from CD sales. Artists profit from tours and merchandise (at least, if they do well enough to finish paying for the CD).
Any time the RIAA or any other publisher pulls out the old "but think of the poor artist!" line, they're lying. That's been the excuse for stringent copyright laws for over 300 years now, and the only party that ever benefits is the publisher. Remember that: Copyright was first invented to benefit publishers, not creators. Publishers want to keep it that way, and they'll do and say whatever is necessary to achieve that. The historical record speaks for itself.
Yes, this is true..the artists DO make money on tours, t-shirts, merchandise sold there, etc. But do you REALLY like paying several hundred dollars PER SEAT, and 50-75+ bucks for a hanes beefy t that costs the artist 3 bucks to buy and print and looks like 50 cents after you wash it? If the artists, btw who are taking ALL the risk (except for the upfront cash from the record label) are making like 40 cents per album sold, that is a HUGE FREGGIN' CHUNK taken by those @-HOLES. Do you enjoy making the artists work harder than they have to to get a decent amount of money. If the artists got more $$ from each album we could all go to the concerts without having to sell bone marrow, or other bodily fluids/parts! The artist would be happier, and that would at least make us paying 18-20 bucks a CD a bit more palettable! We need to stick up for our artists..they are the ones who make our music, the music that cheers us up, drives our creativity, etc. I think that the recording industry needs to have a monopoly charge slapped on it. Enough is enough! We are tired of paying your exhorbant, bloated fees...if the artist does not get more, then make your prices lower! They have been too high for too long! (pissed party of one!) The artists are your bread and butter, their fans are the legs you walk on..tread carefully or someone, somewhere will give you a run for you money..and then we will all have choices to buy our music from..and the artists will have a choice of where they want to get signed up...think you greedy pigs, think!
To me, the itunes update was done to prevent people from sharing(not just streaming, but also ripping those streams and then having them for your own personal use) music outside of their network.
A few(maybe not as few as we'd think) spoiled it for the rest. That's about how it always seems to go.
I've seen a few posts here on how to convert streams so they can be stored on your own HDD, that's the reason Apple put out this update, to cover their ass from people who can't be honest.
There have been people on this forum and others who've been ripping streams, yet they're the very ones to go up in arms over this update, probably because they stand the most to lose.
As long as there's a free alternative to music that the RIAA isn't totally able to control, people are going to use it. Why? Because it's free, and people feel they're free of consequence by using it. The best thing the RIAA could've done when p2p programs and ftp sharing started happening, was to lay down the law. Back when it was new, word alone may have been enough to scare the few who were coming up with these programs and sharing music. Now it's so widespread, for every p2p program that goes down, four pop up in its place, and people get the impression that they will not be punished.
"Personally, I think the 1976 Act had it right. It's pointless and oppressive to go after individuals making tiny amounts of copies for friends and relatives. This only constitutes unauthorized publication (i.e., piracy) in the most absurdly literal-minded sense, and prohibiting it only criminalizes a natural and wholesome human instinct."
I'd agree with you if it weren't for p2p, bittorrent, directconnect, ftp, ircserv's, etc..
when these programs didn't exist, that law made sense. But now when you can share one file with millions of people in one day, I don't think that constitutes de minimus anymore. You may be honest, but the person(friend/family etc..) you burn that song for may not be. And no one says it has to stop there, your friend burns a copy for a friend, he for his friend etc... it just makes it even more likely that that file will be shared by more than just a few people.
You have not really added much to this thread, groverat. Three lines or so, that left me wondering if your despise went towards the posters here, or towards Apple. Maybe you could make your position clearer.
To me, the itunes update was done to prevent people from sharing(not just streaming, but also ripping those streams and then having them for your own personal use) music outside of their network.
A few(maybe not as few as we'd think) spoiled it for the rest. That's about how it always seems to go.
That does happen, but that's not all: You always have to assume a "dull roar" standard of abuse and fallibility. If the referees called every actual foul in a game, no-one would get anywhere.
The other side of the coin is that the music industry is abjectly terrified of copying, and Apple has to shut down any obvious avenues that allow it in order to sell them on distributing music online at all. This is a pragmatic gesture as much as (or more than) an ethical one.
After all, if you measured the damage done by the music industry's dishonesty in dollars, vs. the iTunes rippers, I think you'd find the result was hopelessly lopsided toward the industry. The big 5 labels were just busted for collusion and price-fixing, and nobody here is calling for iTunes to be patched to deal with their abuses.
Quote:
As long as there's a free alternative to music that the RIAA isn't totally able to control, people are going to use it. Why? Because it's free, and people feel they're free of consequence by using it.
Looks like you bought into the RIAA's story hook, line and sinker. Sorry, but no. Napster was user-friendly, interactive, and convenient. You could get albums that were hard to find in stores, or that were no longer in print. You could sample new bands, and find out how many songs on the hot new CD were actually worth listening to. You could get around RIAA pricing so skewed that, for some titles, the soundtrack to a movie cost only $1 less than the whole DVD!
If you look around, you'll find that lots of musicians and songwriters have much higher opinions of P2P than publishers do (of course, this is not unanimously true). If you want to find a far more consistent target for the ill will of the people whose work is under discussion here, look no farther than the companies sheltering behind the RIAA. The RIAA would just love it if you believed that its members were honest, fair-minded businesses, and the P2P services were Mafia-controlled dens of iniquity serving evil, dark-eyed scum who cackled as they stole bread from the mouths of poor, innocent artists with big, moist doe eyes. The fact is that nobody - and I mean nobody - has done more to deprive artists of the fruits of their work than the Big 5 record labels.
As Camper Van Beethoven say in the liner notes to their new collection: "HOME TAPING IS KILLING THE RECORD INDUSTRY! AND IT'S ABOUT DAMN TIME!"
Which reminds me: The RIAA's argument (and your argument) is identical, almost verbatim, to arguments against every form of commercially available recordable medium all the way back to the reel to reel, and also to the MPAA's argument against videocassettes. They've always been wrong. These technologies have always grown the industries they supposedly destroy.
Quote:
The best thing the RIAA could've done when p2p programs and ftp sharing started happening, was to lay down the law.
P2P programs were the best thing to happen to the RIAA. If it hadn't been for the DMCA, the RIAA would have no law to lay down. As it is, the tactics they've resorted to (trying to pass laws allowing them to hack into people's machines and delete files on suspicion?!) are uniformly dishonest and repugnant.
If it wasn't for Napster and Grokster and Gnutella and what-have-you, there would be no iTunes Music Store, and we'd all be discontently shelling out $20 for the latest Coldplay CD (of which money Coldplay would be lucky to see one lonely pence). I cannot stress this often enough: This is an industry that did not want you to be able to listen to a CD before purchasing it! They are completely anti-consumer. If Napster was a bit too pro-consumer, it was hardly worse. If it did any damage at all, and none of the RIAA's claims hold enough water to convince me that it did, then it hurt the labels much more than the artists.
The RIAA is the lobbying arm of the five major labels. It does not represent artists or their interests in any way, shape or form.
Quote:
I'd agree with you if it weren't for p2p, bittorrent, directconnect, ftp, ircserv's, etc..
when these programs didn't exist, that law made sense. But now when you can share one file with millions of people in one day, I don't think that constitutes de minimus anymore. You may be honest, but the person(friend/family etc..) you burn that song for may not be. And no one says it has to stop there, your friend burns a copy for a friend, he for his friend etc... it just makes it even more likely that that file will be shared by more than just a few people.
First of all, do you know how old FTP is? Or, say, USENET? Both were firmly in place - if not exactly popular - when the 1976 copyright act was passed.
The point you consistently miss is that the RIAA is not honest. The politicians who accept hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from the RIAA to pass anti-copyright bills into law are not honest. The aide who slipped in a provision making all music recorded for labels into work for hire, automatically, was not honest.
People are honest. In fact, they are honest enough to know when they are being ripped off, and eager to look for alternatives. Napster was grievously flawed, and it could not last as an enterprise, but it came into existence to fill a void that the major labels, in their utter greed, had opened wide. It gave some power back to the consumer, and forced the industry to strike a better deal, and forced a fruitful and long overdue debate on industry practices and copyright. One could not implausibly think of Napster as an act of civil disobedience, at least in its original form.
The thing that artists hope for, almost instinctively, is exposure. Getting their music out where people can hear it is #1 on almost every artist's list (the ones for whom this is not true are generally household names like the Rolling Stones). Widespread copying of bootlegs and albums has served as exposure for lots of up-and-coming bands. It means no album sales - to people who couldn't get their albums anyway. It means an installed fan base they can hit on a tour even though it's far from any of the pitiful distribution channels available to them. It means word-of-mouth marketing, which is both the most influential kind available at any cost and free. P2P is the old way squared. A lot of artists, especially in genres like hip-hop that the major labels don't understand, put their songs on P2P networks themselves. Increasingly, there are bands who offer their songs for free on the web, not bothering with CDs at all, and make money on tours and merchandise - which is about the same business model that major label acts depend on anyway, only without the corrupt middleman, the indecipherable indentured-servitude contract, and the $18 toll you have to pay in order to decide whether or not you like the band.
So, really, the only losers here are the major labels. Not the consumers. Not the artists. And that's why it's the major labels that are complaining so loudly. Not the consumers. Not the artists.
If there's any "right" and "wrong" in this issue, the RIAA is on the wrong side on nearly every count. Don't believe the hype.
Comments
Originally posted by superkarate monkeydeathcar
well how about all those blockbuster people, they CHARGE MONEY so you can borrow it, then i take it home and show it to my wife her mom and dad and sister her two children and my three children (that's nine right?) certainly someone in this instance can be fined or better yet locked away for a suitable period of time.
you do realize, of course, that those blockbuster poeple have a deal with the publishers, right?
you do realize, of course, that those tapes the blockbuster people are renting are not the same as the tape you buy at he store?
you do realize, of course, that those blockbuster people paid far more for that copy of the tape than you would? somewhere in the range of $100, sometimes more... this way the movie industry ensures itself of a reasonable amount of royalties from the rental
Originally posted by pesi
you do realize, of course, that those blockbuster poeple have a deal with the publishers, right?
you do realize, of course, that those tapes the blockbuster people are renting are not the same as the tape you buy at he store?
you do realize, of course, that those blockbuster people paid far more for that copy of the tape than you would? somewhere in the range of $100, sometimes more... this way the movie industry ensures itself of a reasonable amount of royalties from the rental
they pay more for dvd? are you sure?
I am very disappointed to hear about the crippling of iTunes 4 in the latest update. Not everyone's family lives in the same subnet. I have family across the US, and I loved being able to listen to eachother's music via iTunes. Here I'd convinced my parents to switch to a Mac in large part to the open policies, and the concept that not every customer is automatically a criminal.
While this is certainly the prevelent mindset at Apple, it's sad to see such a huge leap backwards in your products funtionality.
I hope you can find a better solution to the legitimate piracy concerns other than the assumption that no one can be trusted.
Next time do your homework before you go ranting. This is not a step backwards, you cant prise Apple for setting up the best online music store, then abuse them for fixing a security hole. You do realise that the way it was constitutes an internet radio staion - for which you should pay royalties for every song that gets played from your iTunes.
As for you family in the US then yes I agree that sharing tunes is nice - so get your whining butt over to google and lookup VPN info. Which is the correct way of doing this type of thing.
FFS some of you want the moon on a stick - delivered by Apple!!
Originally posted by superkarate monkeydeathcar
they pay more for dvd? are you sure?
actually, i need to correct myself on this. this used to be the way rentals operated. i did a little poking around and discovered that's not the case anymore. now blockbuster pays a lower rate for the tapes, but they send 40% of all rental monies to the studios.
so, the studios are still getting a cut of all rentals.
Originally posted by pesi
actually, i need to correct myself on this. this used to be the way rentals operated. i did a little poking around and discovered that's not the case anymore. now blockbuster pays a lower rate for the tapes, but they send 40% of all rental monies to the studios.
so, the studios are still getting a cut of all rentals.
Nevertheless, if you rent a DVD it's still illegal to have more than eight people watching it, even in the privacy of your own home.
Originally posted by Amorph
Nevertheless, if you rent a DVD it's still illegal to have more than eight people watching it, even in the privacy of your own home.
very true. i was originally replying to the post that made a connection between iTunes internet streaming and blockbuster rentals, assuming that video rentals were the same and that the movie industry made nothing more off the rental business than the original cost of the cassette/dvd.
(friend) x-men, cool, can i watch?
(you) no, theres already 8 people in the room, i just dont feel right about it....
Go Amorph! Go Amorph!
You can always start FTP, Windows File sharing or Personal File sharing. It will be less convenient, as you'll lose all your playlists, ratings, last played etc., but you'll still get the songs.
Barto
Originally posted by pesi
actually, i need to correct myself on this. this used to be the way rentals operated. i did a little poking around and discovered that's not the case anymore. now blockbuster pays a lower rate for the tapes, but they send 40% of all rental monies to the studios.
Wow... I too didn't know that the movie rental industry had switched business models. This makes me curious; do the studios get a cut of late fees? I'm not sure if its still true, but at one time, blockbuster was making more money from late charges than from actual rentals.
Also, about that 8 person limit... is that total or concurrent viewers?
Back on topic:
I think Apple is taking the right stance on this issue. There is a tradeoff between encouraging creative endeavor with economic incentives and allowing free information flow. No matter how they address the issue, a non-insignificant percentage of people will be dissatisfied.
While there is room for improvement, I think that iTunes is still the gold standard. It provides the music industry with profits on the sale of copyrighted material while still allowing users convenient control over their music library. Yes, there are some technological hurdles to completely streamlining this convenience.
Take a step back and look at what iTunes has accomplished. With a single window, yes with one window, you can now do nearly everything music related. (Aside from splicing tracks) This is absolutely mind-boggling when compared to any other media. It?s a minor concession, being unable to give away music to the rest of the planet with the click of a single button. Perhaps we?ve forgotten how inconvenient music collections used to be in comparison. If anything, we should still be thanking apple.
Originally posted by tommy_thompson
Think, from what I have found, the artists get a really SMALL SMALL crappy peice of the pie. LIKE LESS THAN A DOLLAR AN ALBUM! You, We spend 16-20-ish bucks on a CD..and the artist get a FUGGIN' DOLLAR??!?!
Actually, the (major label) artist grosses a dollar, but they net considerably less than that, because the full cost of the album, tour, videos, etc. (all of which are set by the studios) comes out of the artist's hide.
If you have a standard major label contract, and you sell 2 million CDs, you do not make $2 million. You'd be lucky to earn $30K. Most artists don't sell anything like 2 million CDs, so they go on tour (and hope that the label doesn't saddle them with a really expensive light show) and earn money that way.
Originally posted by fahlman
It's about duplication! If you and I and my mom's only son can all listen to the same song from the same source, that's legal. It's the duplication of the source that allows you to listen to the song away from the original source that is illegal.
Absolutely not. Copyright is concerned with publication - that is, making things available to the public. Piracy means unauthorized publication. If I buy a book and run 10,000 copies of it, and put them in my storage room, I have not broken any law. If I give the book and all 10,000 copies of it to to the same person, I have not broken any law.
If I give one copy to a friend, I have (under the 1976 law) committed a de minimus violation, which was fair use and legal (and might still be - I've never had the stomach to read the DMCA end to end, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't say much about physical books).
Someone said that the artist gets $1.00 of every $18.00 we spend on a CD. If three out of every five people that possess (I was going to saw own, but that implies spend money) a CD have "burned" that CD then the artist only get's fourty cents on average.
As I've already said, this is zero-sum logic, and provably false.
Besides, if a major label contract exists that actually gives the artist forty cents of profit per CD, I'd be astonished. Labels profit from CD sales. Artists profit from tours and merchandise (at least, if they do well enough to finish paying for the CD).
Any time the RIAA or any other publisher pulls out the old "but think of the poor artist!" line, they're lying. That's been the excuse for stringent copyright laws for over 300 years now, and the only party that ever benefits is the publisher. Remember that: Copyright was first invented to benefit publishers, not creators. Publishers want to keep it that way, and they'll do and say whatever is necessary to achieve that. The historical record speaks for itself.
Everything Apple does is right.
braaaaaaaaaains
A few(maybe not as few as we'd think) spoiled it for the rest. That's about how it always seems to go.
I've seen a few posts here on how to convert streams so they can be stored on your own HDD, that's the reason Apple put out this update, to cover their ass from people who can't be honest.
There have been people on this forum and others who've been ripping streams, yet they're the very ones to go up in arms over this update, probably because they stand the most to lose.
As long as there's a free alternative to music that the RIAA isn't totally able to control, people are going to use it. Why? Because it's free, and people feel they're free of consequence by using it. The best thing the RIAA could've done when p2p programs and ftp sharing started happening, was to lay down the law. Back when it was new, word alone may have been enough to scare the few who were coming up with these programs and sharing music. Now it's so widespread, for every p2p program that goes down, four pop up in its place, and people get the impression that they will not be punished.
"Personally, I think the 1976 Act had it right. It's pointless and oppressive to go after individuals making tiny amounts of copies for friends and relatives. This only constitutes unauthorized publication (i.e., piracy) in the most absurdly literal-minded sense, and prohibiting it only criminalizes a natural and wholesome human instinct."
I'd agree with you if it weren't for p2p, bittorrent, directconnect, ftp, ircserv's, etc..
when these programs didn't exist, that law made sense. But now when you can share one file with millions of people in one day, I don't think that constitutes de minimus anymore. You may be honest, but the person(friend/family etc..) you burn that song for may not be. And no one says it has to stop there, your friend burns a copy for a friend, he for his friend etc... it just makes it even more likely that that file will be shared by more than just a few people.
Originally posted by groverat
Everything Apple does is right.
Everything Apple does is right.
braaaaaaaaaains
You have not really added much to this thread, groverat. Three lines or so, that left me wondering if your despise went towards the posters here, or towards Apple. Maybe you could make your position clearer.
Originally posted by liquidh2o
To me, the itunes update was done to prevent people from sharing(not just streaming, but also ripping those streams and then having them for your own personal use) music outside of their network.
A few(maybe not as few as we'd think) spoiled it for the rest. That's about how it always seems to go.
That does happen, but that's not all: You always have to assume a "dull roar" standard of abuse and fallibility. If the referees called every actual foul in a game, no-one would get anywhere.
The other side of the coin is that the music industry is abjectly terrified of copying, and Apple has to shut down any obvious avenues that allow it in order to sell them on distributing music online at all. This is a pragmatic gesture as much as (or more than) an ethical one.
After all, if you measured the damage done by the music industry's dishonesty in dollars, vs. the iTunes rippers, I think you'd find the result was hopelessly lopsided toward the industry. The big 5 labels were just busted for collusion and price-fixing, and nobody here is calling for iTunes to be patched to deal with their abuses.
As long as there's a free alternative to music that the RIAA isn't totally able to control, people are going to use it. Why? Because it's free, and people feel they're free of consequence by using it.
Looks like you bought into the RIAA's story hook, line and sinker. Sorry, but no. Napster was user-friendly, interactive, and convenient. You could get albums that were hard to find in stores, or that were no longer in print. You could sample new bands, and find out how many songs on the hot new CD were actually worth listening to. You could get around RIAA pricing so skewed that, for some titles, the soundtrack to a movie cost only $1 less than the whole DVD!
If you look around, you'll find that lots of musicians and songwriters have much higher opinions of P2P than publishers do (of course, this is not unanimously true). If you want to find a far more consistent target for the ill will of the people whose work is under discussion here, look no farther than the companies sheltering behind the RIAA. The RIAA would just love it if you believed that its members were honest, fair-minded businesses, and the P2P services were Mafia-controlled dens of iniquity serving evil, dark-eyed scum who cackled as they stole bread from the mouths of poor, innocent artists with big, moist doe eyes. The fact is that nobody - and I mean nobody - has done more to deprive artists of the fruits of their work than the Big 5 record labels.
As Camper Van Beethoven say in the liner notes to their new collection: "HOME TAPING IS KILLING THE RECORD INDUSTRY! AND IT'S ABOUT DAMN TIME!"
Which reminds me: The RIAA's argument (and your argument) is identical, almost verbatim, to arguments against every form of commercially available recordable medium all the way back to the reel to reel, and also to the MPAA's argument against videocassettes. They've always been wrong. These technologies have always grown the industries they supposedly destroy.
The best thing the RIAA could've done when p2p programs and ftp sharing started happening, was to lay down the law.
P2P programs were the best thing to happen to the RIAA. If it hadn't been for the DMCA, the RIAA would have no law to lay down. As it is, the tactics they've resorted to (trying to pass laws allowing them to hack into people's machines and delete files on suspicion?!) are uniformly dishonest and repugnant.
If it wasn't for Napster and Grokster and Gnutella and what-have-you, there would be no iTunes Music Store, and we'd all be discontently shelling out $20 for the latest Coldplay CD (of which money Coldplay would be lucky to see one lonely pence). I cannot stress this often enough: This is an industry that did not want you to be able to listen to a CD before purchasing it! They are completely anti-consumer. If Napster was a bit too pro-consumer, it was hardly worse. If it did any damage at all, and none of the RIAA's claims hold enough water to convince me that it did, then it hurt the labels much more than the artists.
The RIAA is the lobbying arm of the five major labels. It does not represent artists or their interests in any way, shape or form.
I'd agree with you if it weren't for p2p, bittorrent, directconnect, ftp, ircserv's, etc..
when these programs didn't exist, that law made sense. But now when you can share one file with millions of people in one day, I don't think that constitutes de minimus anymore. You may be honest, but the person(friend/family etc..) you burn that song for may not be. And no one says it has to stop there, your friend burns a copy for a friend, he for his friend etc... it just makes it even more likely that that file will be shared by more than just a few people.
First of all, do you know how old FTP is? Or, say, USENET? Both were firmly in place - if not exactly popular - when the 1976 copyright act was passed.
The point you consistently miss is that the RIAA is not honest. The politicians who accept hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from the RIAA to pass anti-copyright bills into law are not honest. The aide who slipped in a provision making all music recorded for labels into work for hire, automatically, was not honest.
People are honest. In fact, they are honest enough to know when they are being ripped off, and eager to look for alternatives. Napster was grievously flawed, and it could not last as an enterprise, but it came into existence to fill a void that the major labels, in their utter greed, had opened wide. It gave some power back to the consumer, and forced the industry to strike a better deal, and forced a fruitful and long overdue debate on industry practices and copyright. One could not implausibly think of Napster as an act of civil disobedience, at least in its original form.
The thing that artists hope for, almost instinctively, is exposure. Getting their music out where people can hear it is #1 on almost every artist's list (the ones for whom this is not true are generally household names like the Rolling Stones). Widespread copying of bootlegs and albums has served as exposure for lots of up-and-coming bands. It means no album sales - to people who couldn't get their albums anyway. It means an installed fan base they can hit on a tour even though it's far from any of the pitiful distribution channels available to them. It means word-of-mouth marketing, which is both the most influential kind available at any cost and free. P2P is the old way squared. A lot of artists, especially in genres like hip-hop that the major labels don't understand, put their songs on P2P networks themselves. Increasingly, there are bands who offer their songs for free on the web, not bothering with CDs at all, and make money on tours and merchandise - which is about the same business model that major label acts depend on anyway, only without the corrupt middleman, the indecipherable indentured-servitude contract, and the $18 toll you have to pay in order to decide whether or not you like the band.
So, really, the only losers here are the major labels. Not the consumers. Not the artists. And that's why it's the major labels that are complaining so loudly. Not the consumers. Not the artists.
If there's any "right" and "wrong" in this issue, the RIAA is on the wrong side on nearly every count. Don't believe the hype.