I generally agree with your points, but that is *the worst* definition of theft I have ever heard.
I'm guessing you never lend your car to friends, or give them lifts as that would be 'stealing' from car rental firms and taxis. And libraries are just hives of scum and villainy by this definition.
Let me say this in another way ...
If something is for SALE and you do not pay for it (as is the case via P2P), then I would consider that theft.
Am I charging to LEND my car to my friends? No. If they took it without my permission then it would be theft.
When I RENT a car (video/CD whatever) am I paying for it? Yes. If I got a video and did not pay for it, then it would be theft.
Libraries LEND items (books/CD/videos/rental cars whatever). Do they charge to LEND. Usually not.
You will obviously see the point I'm making is about whether a fee is involved or not. Commercial products are usually for sale. If you go to a library they have paid for the item and they lend it to you (not to make a copy of - of course).
It is highly doubtable that many of the files on a P2P have been paid for, and most people are keeping the product - unless it's Alex Lloyd.
That would be pretty pointless unless there was an entire dissertation written by the artist's accountants detailing the various forms of payment that an artist receives and estimates of the value received in return for money that goes elsewhere . There's far more to splitting up the profits than just Apple/the Artist/Record Industry Fatcats.
To give one obvious example, artists make less money on cover versions and things that contain samples.
Fair call - I was really intrigued to know on a basic level what cut each artist received from the iTMS. Still, I maintain, it would be interesting to see!
If something is for SALE and you do not pay for it (as is the case via P2P), then I would consider that theft.
Still a terrible definition, but this time I'll stick to p2p for my counter-example:
* I can download songs that are out of copyright.
* These songs are also available for sale.
* This is not theft, by anyone's definition.
This applies to any digital file that is out of copyright and is available for sale, which therefore shows that the only difference is that some files have government granted monopolies on their distribution (in some places and for certain uses).
You can continue calling infringement of these government granted monopolies 'theft' if you want, but it's not. You'd have a far easier time convincing people that the unwarranted extension of these monopolies was in fact theft.
This also doesn't address the more populist argument that record companies can't complain about people downloading really obscure tracks because they aren't for sale.
Comments
Originally posted by stupider...likeafox
I generally agree with your points, but that is *the worst* definition of theft I have ever heard.
I'm guessing you never lend your car to friends, or give them lifts as that would be 'stealing' from car rental firms and taxis. And libraries are just hives of scum and villainy by this definition.
Let me say this in another way ...
If something is for SALE and you do not pay for it (as is the case via P2P), then I would consider that theft.
Am I charging to LEND my car to my friends? No. If they took it without my permission then it would be theft.
When I RENT a car (video/CD whatever) am I paying for it? Yes. If I got a video and did not pay for it, then it would be theft.
Libraries LEND items (books/CD/videos/rental cars whatever). Do they charge to LEND. Usually not.
You will obviously see the point I'm making is about whether a fee is involved or not. Commercial products are usually for sale. If you go to a library they have paid for the item and they lend it to you (not to make a copy of - of course).
It is highly doubtable that many of the files on a P2P have been paid for, and most people are keeping the product - unless it's Alex Lloyd.
Originally posted by stupider...likeafox
That would be pretty pointless unless there was an entire dissertation written by the artist's accountants detailing the various forms of payment that an artist receives and estimates of the value received in return for money that goes elsewhere . There's far more to splitting up the profits than just Apple/the Artist/Record Industry Fatcats.
To give one obvious example, artists make less money on cover versions and things that contain samples.
Fair call - I was really intrigued to know on a basic level what cut each artist received from the iTMS. Still, I maintain, it would be interesting to see!
Welcome to December's 2nd edition of A&R Online's Inside Scoop.
This week's article:
Hits Sales Chart-Week Ending 11/24/03-Analysis.
By Robert Scott Lefsetz
Thirty six years ago there was a phenomenon. Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant".
"Alice's Restaurant" was almost twenty minutes in length. Certainly too long for
AM Top Forty. It had a catchy chorus. But it appeared only briefly at the
beginning and end of the song. In between, there was a long story, a RAP! About
how Arlo Guthrie's illegal dumping on Thanksgiving got him out of the draft.
FM underground radio, of which there were only a HANDFUL of stations in America,
would play "Alice's Restaurant" now and again. They'd announce when they would
spin it. And listeners got on the sixties equivalent of IM, the telephone, and
called all their peeps. And they heard this song, which RESONATED! And they told
all THEIR friends about it. And then, the record started to sell, Arlo Guthrie
concerts sold out. An act was broken.
There was no appearance on "Today". No heavy ad campaign. It was all word of
mouth, under the radar.
THAT'S artist development.
The time is ripe for a new "Alice's Restaurant". Maybe not a twenty minute talk
song, but definitely something that sounds COMPLETELY different from what's on
the radio today. It will be downloaded. Word will spread amongst kids. YOU won't
know about it until it reaches critical mass. Just like the mainstream had NO
IDEA about "Alice's Restaurant" until a story about the phenomenon appeared in
"Time" magazine.
The boy band phenomenon didn't teach us selling techniques, rather it taught us
that the AUDIENCE had changed. That YOUTH had taken over, the KIDS of the baby
boomers. They rejected what came before, they wanted something new, and fresh.
Kids want Taking Back Sunday. They don't want a new Britney Spears.
Spears survives because she was the paragon, the poster girl for youth music.
She's a living trainwreck. This is a pretty good figure. But, if it wasn't the
fourth quarter, sales would go into free fall almost immediately. Because the
music sucks. Still, the record will tank. Right after Christmas. Just like
Jewel's last CD. You see they were both out of tune with the MARKETPLACE!
The marketplace wants something real, that touches their hearts.
Oh, there's room for some confections, but not many. The whole business can't
survive on them.
But that's what the major labels are doing. They've trimmed the rosters to SURE
SHOTS! Very EXPENSIVE sure shots. This is a recipe for DEATH!
Give Edgar Bronfman, Jr. props. It was a brilliant idea to purchase the Warner
Music Group. But his reported plans with regard to the future show a COMPLETE
LACK OF UNDERSTANDING OF THE STREET!
Cutting costs... You can't tell superstars to cut costs, IMPOSSIBLE! Hell, they
believe they're DRIVING your company. Your only hope to reduce their pay is at
renegotiation time, after their sales have declined, and you don't want them
anyway.
So what are Edgar and his buddies gonna do?
Cut employees.
Now, there are a lot of high-priced employees who don't work hard enough. But,
Edgar doesn't plan to lay off these people and replace them with younger,
hungrier, CHEAPER people, rather he wants to decrease head count COMPLETELY!
And this is just another step in the major label death spiral.
Now Edgar COULD just lay off EVERYBODY except those at Rhino and turn WMG into a
catalog company and make his money back, but that's not the plan. The plan is to
GROW the company. Or lay it off quickly, a la SBK Publishing and EMI. But that
would just be a banking deal. Question is, if you're in for the long haul, how do
you grow a company today?
Sign acts to cheaper deals. Make records for less money. That don't depend on
mainstream media support to make it. Hell, this mainstream media exposure
actually KILLS acts.
And you need a TEAM of scurrying rabbits to make these new records happen.
Bending the ears of retailers, out in vans touring with these new entities,
putting up posters. You need BELIEVERS!
The old farts aren't believers. But young kids are. And you need them. To both
tell you what acts are hip and how to break them.
There's a generation gap as wide as the one in the sixties. Major labels need
decoder rings to survive. But, they just want to invest in the OLD SYSTEM,
oblivious to the changing marketplace. They just want to sign marquee names, hype
them to shit, get them on the radio and MTV, and get their money back
immediately. That worked in the nineties, it's the exception today. It only works
for the most base, sold out acts.
Tomorrow XM Radio is going to play "Alice's Restaurant". MORE than once.
Arlo Guthrie had one legitimate radio hit, yet he still tours and makes a living
off his music today.
Whereas nobody wants to see the Lemon Pipers, or the 1910 Fruitgum Company or the
Starland Vocal Band.
But at least the music of these historical acts is still PLAYED on oldies radio.
Whereas most of today's hit acts will have straight gigs in two years, and their
music will NEVER be heard again. Kind of like biker pics of the sixties. "Easy
Rider" can still draw a crowd, but the rest sit on the shelf.
The reason Warner Music is worth what Bronfman paid for it is its CATALOG! And
most of the pearls of the catalog were recorded by acts that were so left field
as to be out of the stadium, and their initial records had NO chance of
mainstream airplay. Yet, Led Zeppelin and Neil Young survive. To this day.
They're bigger and more powerful than most of today's new HIT acts.
Britney doesn't write the songs, she doesn't sing live, she's not a musical
talent, but a CELEBRITY!
That was the nineties. We're in a new era. Which the majors don't understand. So
what do they do, they BITCH! Saying it's downloaders. Well, if it were
downloaders, how in the hell did they sell this many CDs?
Stop carping about new technologies. HARNESS them. To get the word out about the
new and different. And there's always a hunger for the new and different. But
after so many years of sameness, the public is RAVENOUS!
Originally posted by MarkL
Let me say this in another way ...
If something is for SALE and you do not pay for it (as is the case via P2P), then I would consider that theft.
Still a terrible definition, but this time I'll stick to p2p for my counter-example:
* I can download songs that are out of copyright.
* These songs are also available for sale.
* This is not theft, by anyone's definition.
This applies to any digital file that is out of copyright and is available for sale, which therefore shows that the only difference is that some files have government granted monopolies on their distribution (in some places and for certain uses).
You can continue calling infringement of these government granted monopolies 'theft' if you want, but it's not. You'd have a far easier time convincing people that the unwarranted extension of these monopolies was in fact theft.
This also doesn't address the more populist argument that record companies can't complain about people downloading really obscure tracks because they aren't for sale.