If I understood the original poster correctly, the pirated DVDs that they have are unavailable for purchase in their country. The DVDs that they do not wish to lend to their friend, however, are, and they have purchased them. I think that that makes a difference and therefore the original poster could be argued not to be a hypocrite.
Nice try but no way. It does not matter which DVDs the friend wants to copy. The fact is, the poster participates in illegal distribution when it suits him. I use the present tense because he still has the DVDs and does not seem to be willing to give them up. He thinks it is OK because he can't acquire legal ones. The moral answer would be not to acquire them at all. Therefore, he is saying that his friend's moral justification for stealing is not as good as his own. That is what I am calling hypocrisy.
Enough of that.
Let's talk about the industry. You mentioned fair distribution of income. Let's start there. I am not a redistributionist. I do believe in an honest day's pay for an honest day's work. IMO, the day's work of entertainers is way over valued. The whole idea of becoming a famous entertainer for most people trying to get there is to bask in limelight and glory that is largely unearned. They want more sex than any person needs. They want more money than they can spend. They want more material things than they can use. They ultimately become caricatures of human beings. This is not the purpose for which God gave us talent. Art and entertainment is intended for the public good just like sanitation or education. I understand that this is a minority point of view, but bear with me. I am a musician, singer, songwriter. I want my work published and I want to be heard. What I don't want is to become some kind of idol to be worshiped by the masses. There was a time when I wanted that. But i"ve grown up since then. If it stopped there, then I would be all set. There are now lots of ways for me to share my talents. What complicates the issue is that I also want to get paid. I have no idea what the best way is to go about that. But the current schemes mostly involve my publisher or producer getting rich, not me.
This takes us to the other problem associated with getting paid. Should entertainers even be trying to "get rich"? I don't think so. Exploiting our talent to extort more money than it is worth is a much bigger moral issue than anything we decide regarding digital rights management. Greed drives we musicians to demand payment every time someone is blessed enough to hear our greatness. Hear us on the radio, we get paid. Hear us on TV, we get paid. Hear us live, we get paid. Hear someone else singing a song or playing any part of a song we had anything to do with, we get paid. A church makes a few copies of the sheet music so their choir can use it, we get paid. Throw in distribution and you open a whole new can of worms. Listen to it in a CD player connected to your home stereo, we get paid. They don't want you to be able to use that disk in your computer... so... Listen to it on your computer, go to iTunes and buy another copy, we get paid again. Listen to it on your cell phone, we get paid again. Want it on SACD or ADVD, we get paid yet again. It never ends. All this because we wrote, performed, and recorded one song that only took a few hours at most. For this, we want to get paid for every person, every time they think about the song for the rest of our lives, and beyond. INSANE!!!
Doctors get paid a lot. But they only get paid for the procedures they do and other measurable activities. They get paid for saving your life, not for every breath you take afterward. Athletes get paid for the games they play and advertisements they do. They get paid to entertain you. They do not get paid for the number of times you relive the big score or for the pride you carry with you. Entertainers should get a fair wage for the content they produce. They produce it once. They should get paid once. Once they are paid, everything else is just distribution. This applies to everyone else in the food chain. These days, distribution costs next to nothing. Coincidentally, that is about how much people are willing to pay for the distribution of music, and now movies. In my brave new world, I am uncertain what fair pay for entertainers looks like. I am certain that compensation from obscene distribution taxes is not it.
I find it disappointing, however, that you ignored this comment:
Quote:
Originally posted by Mr. H
I would find this argument easier to accept if you did not consume the output of said industry. It seems a bit contradictory to me: "The industry sucks. Their product is crap". "But I'm going to consume said product anyway".
Do you have a response? Did I over-simplify?
Quote:
Originally posted by Mac Voyer
They don't want you to be able to use that disk in your computer... so... Listen to it on your computer, go to iTunes and buy another copy, we get paid again.
I don't think that any of the anti-copy technologies that have been tried have attempted to stop you from listening to the music on your computer. Not that I'm defending CD anti-copy. It is retarded.
It is also a shame that you talked only about the income of the artist, and not of any of the other workers who support said artist. How should they earn their income?
There are literally thousands of record companies. Are you saying that none of them offer a fair deal to their artists?
In response to whether artists should get rich or not, I would say that there are considerable risks associated with trying to be a musician as a full-time job (if you are not popular you won't earn much money), and significant potential benefits should accompany those risks.
I would find this argument easier to accept if you did not consume the output of said industry. It seems a bit contradictory to me: "The industry sucks. Their product is crap". "But I'm going to consume said product anyway".
Sometimes you have no choice. Some people think WinXP is crap and they think the company producing WinXP sucks but they have no other choice because their work requires them to use it.
Same thing with music. People need music. People want to listen to the music they like. And if the music they like is owned by a label with less-then-a-stellar record, that doesn't mean that they should give up music, grow a beard, and go to Alaska deer-hunting.
Sometimes you have no choice. Some people think WinXP is crap and they think the company producing WinXP sucks but they have no other choice because their work requires them to use it.
True. *sobs*
But anyway... this is the right response to the rather nitpicking criticism that somehow we're voting with our money. We're not--we're buying music. The idea of boycotting a label is pretty stupid:
"Hey, what do you think of the new Daft Punk album?"
"My beliefs don't allow me to listen to that album, as it isn't sold and distributed according to my basic standards of decency."
(for the record, I have no idea how Daft Punk's albums are distributed)
Just think of how hard vegetarians (not to mention vegans) have it sometimes, and that's a distinction that actually means something. If I felt strongly enough about it, I definitely wouldn't boycott artists that I enjoy listening to--but I would steal the music. I think that taking that kind of stand is pointless while there aren't very good alternatives, though.
One exception to that: allofmp3.com. Is it legal? Is it ethical? Nobody's quite sure... but I have a much easier time spending $20 there than $20 anywhere else--something those in the music business should think long and hard about.
Does my ownership of a couple illegal DVDs obligate me to participate in future copyright breaches or make me some sort of hypocrite? [/B]
What do you care what other people think? If you feel uncomfortable, be it because it is illegal, or because your butt itches, don't do it and who gives a &*&$%? You're not an unpopular high-school freshman anymore!
If your friend can't deal with you being uncomfortable, maybe it's time to reevaluate whether they're really your friend?!
I find it disappointing, however, that you ignored this comment:
Do you have a response? Did I over-simplify?
I don't think that any of the anti-copy technologies that have been tried have attempted to stop you from listening to the music on your computer. Not that I'm defending CD anti-copy. It is retarded.
It is also a shame that you talked only about the income of the artist, and not of any of the other workers who support said artist. How should they earn their income?
There are literally thousands of record companies. Are you saying that none of them offer a fair deal to their artists?
In response to whether artists should get rich or not, I would say that there are considerable risks associated with trying to be a musician as a full-time job (if you are not popular you won't earn much money), and significant potential benefits should accompany those risks.
Yes. You did oversimplify. But I love you anyway.
In general, music is getting worse. Older movies seem to tell a better story and are better acted than the modern remake of the same movie. That does not make it all bad. Even some of the bad stuff is still good for a few laughs. Perhaps we should pay based on the number of laughs or tears or sharp intakes of breath a movie rings out of us. Anyway, I do pay to see the movies I watch. I pay at the box office. I pay at the rental store. I pay the cable bill. I buy the products the advertisers imprint on my sub-conscience. If the artists and engineers and costume designers and the make-up artists and not getting their fair share, THAT'S NOT MY FAULT! Blame it on the Mob boss studio head who insists on having five new summer homes a year instead of settling for four. Don't tell me that my paying for yet another copy, this time in digital form, is going to fix the problem or make anyone happy. The first thing we heard after iTunes went video was the union people crying foul. It didn't take long before everyone starting demanding a bigger piece of the pie. No, Mr. H. The system is completely broken. Making fat-cat studio execs even richer will not help anyone you care about. The industry will only respond to pressure. It is up to the market to apply that pressure. And I absolutely refuse to let people like them tell people like us what is moral. As far as what's legal... All of us ever only obey the laws that make sense to us at the time. That is how it is with traffic laws, prostitution, recreational drugs use, and anything else that you can think of. Prohibition proved to be a bad idea and what was legal had to be redefined to accommodate real life. The same will happen with digital rights and copy right laws. We have a long way to go before morality can be judged or legality determined.
Same thing with music. People need music. People want to listen to the music they like. And if the music they like is owned by a label with less-then-a-stellar record, that doesn't mean that they should give up music, grow a beard, and go to Alaska deer-hunting.
No, people do not need music.
Quote:
Originally posted by Duckspeak
I definitely wouldn't boycott artists that I enjoy listening to--but I would steal the music.
Just clarify for me: you are saying that you steal from record labels because you think they are ripping you off? But do you think that artists, and everyone else involved, should be paid?
Quote:
Originally posted by Mac Voyer
If the artists and engineers and costume designers and the make-up artists and not getting their fair share, THAT'S NOT MY FAULT!
I never said it was your fault.
Quote:
Originally posted by Mac Voyer
Don't tell me that my paying for yet another copy, this time in digital form, is going to fix the problem or make anyone happy.
I don't know where this is coming from. I never said that people should have to pay twice to own something once.
Quote:
Originally posted by Mac Voyer
Making fat-cat studio execs even richer will not help anyone you care about.
I did not say that, either.
I don't know why this is so hard for people to grasp. You talk as if the only thing that buying CDs/digital downloads does is line the pockets of the industry bosses. This is simply not true. It also pays the wages of the people who create, publicise and distribute the entertainment that you consume. No one has successfully explained why some people should get something for free when others have to pay for it.
You also talk as if the entertainment industry is the only one with "fat cats". This is not the case. This is a problem in most industries, due to a lack of sufficient government intervention in the capitalist system.
What do you care what other people think? If you feel uncomfortable, be it because it is illegal, or because your butt itches, don't do it and who gives a &*&$%? You're not an unpopular high-school freshman anymore!
some of us stay high-school freshman forever, albeit in a slightly more enlightened way. i care what people think about me, and if that makes me shallow and a shellfish, so be it.
Quote:
Therefore, he is saying that his friend's moral justification for stealing is not as good as his own.
-Mac Voyer
quoting myself, earlier in the thread:
Quote:
I've pretty much decided to let my friend copy the discs, with my logic being that it is inconsistant for me to justify my own purchase of a few bootleg DVDs with the fact that they can't be had any other way, when in fact, the girl who wants them has no other way of getting the DVDs. The only thing that is stopping me at this point is that I am mad at her for not asking me directly. But that's petty, and I know it.
some of us stay high-school freshman forever, albeit in a slightly more enlightened way. i care what people think about me, and if that makes me shallow and a shellfish, so be it.
if someone invites me over to their house for dinner, i expect them to have showered relatively recently, made some effort to rid up around the house, and serve something other than cereal. shallow?
Just clarify for me: you are saying that you steal from record labels because you think they are ripping you off? But do you think that artists, and everyone else involved, should be paid?
I stick by my earlier example of a poor family stealing from a bookstore, again with the qualification that this is of course a less extreme situation. I agree with you--people do not need music, the same way people do not need textbooks. But there's something ignorant about that proposition--this should not be an argument about what we need vs. what we want, as that's a pointless and subjective distinction--I would argue that this should be about how people live and how they react to opportunities, costs, market pressures, etc.
But to answer your question, it isn't my responsibility to pay artists directly, nor is it my responsibility to self-police in order to make a dying business model stay profitable for a little longer. To be concrete: if I think a Wilco album costs too much, or if I have to own the content provisionally, I'll find another way to get the songs. It has nothing to do with the label, it has nothing to do with Wilco, and it has nothing to do with morality. I don't have to do this sort of thing much, because I have a good job and music is a high priority in my life, but owning music is no longer the same thing as owning a painting--it is now digital, transferable content, not a singular possession like an LP... leading me to my next point.
Steve Jobs believes that ultimately, in order to prevent piracy, you need to make it at least as easy to buy music as to steal it. Up until iTMS, this wasn't the case--it was simply faster to grab a song off Napster, Kazaa, etc. than to walk down the street and buy it. I don't use iTMS because they don't sell lossless files, but if they started doing it now I would probably stop using everything else. People have always bought albums when bootlegs were available, because the albums were of higher quality.
With the rise of mp3 players, people are listening to more music now than they have in decades. I think that this can only lead to a devaluing of individual songs and artists, something that I'm completely fine with, but that the industry has been resisting fiercely. People seem willing to pay $1 a track, but it's definitely too much these days. Online distribution is nearly free, and recording costs are plummeting with the advent of digital recording.
To really drive the point home that the business model is dying--it has always been the case that you could borrow a CD from a friend and listen to it a few times, then give it back. Well, in the digital world, the equivalent is to make a copy and delete yours, then copy it back and delete the old copy. Since I believe in fair use and owning music, I believe that you should be able to do this, by yourself and without the intervention of DRM. Of course, deleting the file is a silly thing to do--why not just leave it there and save the hassle? Plus, what if you give it to your friend on a burned CD and he loses it? You have the right to keep your own copy just in case. The only time, ever, that this comes into conflict with the old model, is if you, and your friend, happen to ever (heaven forbid!) play the song at the same time--then you've definitely done something illegal and should go to jail.
This model makes no sense. The only two ways out are to apply such extreme DRM that you essentially violate the concept of content ownership, or to move to another business model. Again, I like what I see at allofmp3--it's so cheap to buy an album that my girlfriend and I have each bought our own copy of several albums, because it is literally easier to buy it online, on our own time, then to deal with the hassle of transferring them between our laptops.
I ...But to answer your question, it isn't my responsibility to pay artists directly, nor is it my responsibility to self-police in order to make a dying business model stay profitable for a little longer.
Correct.
The problem is not the consumer; it is the industry. I work for a for profit university. If enough people chose to educate themselves in some other way besides attending a university, that will have a deleterious affect on the livelihood of everyone connected to the education business. Admissions advisors and janitors alike will suffer. Still, education is another one of those industries that is living in a fantasy world from the past. The ones who do not adjust their pricing and delivery methods to the current reality will die. Good riddance! There are a number of industries in the cross-hairs of rapid change. The entertainment industry is but one of them.
So how should they get paid?
Again, I haven't thought this through so I expect there will plenty of fault to find in my theory as I am just making it up as I go.
Consider two opposing theories of compensation. There is production pay. This is pay you receive now based on work you do now. There is a one to one correlation between the work you do and the pay you receive. You can argue that the pay is not fair. But at least you know what to expect up front. Then there is royalty/override pay. This method pays you later based on the profits realized from the work you do today. The vast majority of Americans get some form of production pay. Even sales bonuses and commissions are a type of production pay. We know exactly what wage to expect for certain types and amounts of work we do. Personally, I favor production based pay and would like to see the entertainment industry adopt it in some way. Instead, they are a little like insurance companies. The allure of insurance sales is that you can work for a few years, become fully vested in the company, and live off of overrides from the policies you sold earlier. It almost never works out that way but that's the draw. One sale, many paydays.
Entertainers are worse. They too want to get paid perpetually for work they did once. Further complicating matters is the variable pricing scheme. Last week, band X's concert ticket was worth $20 for a 3 hour show. You supported them and told your friends about them. This week, they tell you that their tickets are now worth $50 for a one hour show. Next week... who knows? Your bought their CD last week and it was $10. This week you want to pick one up for a friend but now it is $18. You just bought an iPod and you friend, a Creative product. Your CD has copy protection so you can't rip it. This week it is $.99. Next week, if the industry has its way, it is $1.79. The madness never stops. Most of the peripheral people in the industry get paid some type of production pay up front for the work they do like regular folks. That is not a real issue. Piracy does not keep make-up artists from getting paid. Trust me. They get paid. What everyone in the industry is looking for is not a paycheck, but a jackpot. Entertainers want you to believe that their work is priceless and timeless. They don't want you to place a value on what they do because then their paycheck is finite. Currently, you never stop paying them. They graced you with their talent once. Now their in you pocket for life. It is a little like paying reparations. Unless you put a finite value on it up front, then you will never pay it off. It will never be enough.
I find it interesting that Mac Voyer believes that owning even one song for which you do not own the copyright OBLIGATES you to pony up anytime anyone asks for a copy of a CD or anything that you own. Do others feel this way?
i don't. just because we sometimes open pandora's box doesn't mean we can't try to stuff everything back inside and move on. i used to grab mp3's all the time when i had no money. now i have money, and i don't anymore, because it makes absolutely no sense for me to do so. i can afford it. just buy it. take responsibility for my actions, admit that my past actions were born of youth and nigh-poverty, and be done with it.
that's my ten cents. the first two cents are free.
if someone invites me over to their house for dinner, i expect them to have showered relatively recently, made some effort to rid up around the house, and serve something other than cereal. shallow?
How is that related to the pervious discussion?
You "expect them to have..."... you don't have feel uncofortable about that... you expect them and that is it!
If you feel uncomfortable that they haven't showered and smell like &*&^, and serve you cereal... get up and leave.
But to answer your question, it isn't my responsibility to pay artists directly, nor is it my responsibility to self-police in order to make a dying business model stay profitable for a little longer.
In other words, you are unwilling to take responsibility for your actions.
Quote:
Originally posted by Duckspeak
it has nothing to do with morality.
I find this bizarre. I believe that strictly speaking, morality has to do with every action. You may think that there is nothing wrong with it, but that doesn't mean it has nothing to do with morality.
Quote:
Originally posted by Mac Voyer
The problem is not the consumer; it is the industry. I work for a for profit university. If enough people chose to educate themselves in some other way besides attending a university, that will have a deleterious affect on the livelihood of everyone connected to the education business. Admissions advisors and janitors alike will suffer. Still, education is another one of those industries that is living in a fantasy world from the past. The ones who do not adjust their pricing and delivery methods to the current reality will die. Good riddance! There are a number of industries in the cross-hairs of rapid change. The entertainment industry is but one of them.
The significant difference between this example and pirating from a record label is that in your example, people are aquiring their education from different sources. They are not "stealing" the education from your university when they should be paying for it.
Duckspeak mentioned earlier about how we were not "somehow voting with our money". Isn't it ironic, then, that I think there are significant parrallels with voting which might help to get my main point across.
Take the most recent government elections in the U.S. You can safely say to any one individual who voted, that their vote made absolutely no difference to the outcome of the election. Was their vote pointless? A waste of time? Worthless? In the same way, you can of course say that one man's piracy does not significantly affect anything. But in order for an industry to be able to pay its staff, it has to have an income. Someone has to pay.
In other words, you are unwilling to take responsibility for your actions.
I find this bizarre. I believe that strictly speaking, morality has to do with every action. You may think that there is nothing wrong with it, but that doesn't mean it has nothing to do with morality.
You're totally missing the context of my comments--that somehow the music industry would just fail to exist if everybody didn't charitably support it. I take full responsibility for my actions, but I have to act in a manner consistent with my mode of existence, my relationship to music, my sense of fair use, and my relationship to money/album pricing. In the most extreme case, (just for the sake of example) I would steal/pirate/copy/whatever albums if they cost $500--I would consider that outside of reason, but as someone who cares deeply about music, I would not be willing to give it up.
That's a somewhat contrived and irrelevant scenario, though, as albums are much more reasonably priced. Hence, I purchase albums legally, as I said--what exactly do I need to take responsibility for beyond the support of the artists whose music I enjoy?
You did pick a particularly badly worded part of my argument, though, as the argument basically only applies to the corrupt bulk of the distribution machine--you know what I'm talking about--which operates consistently with the precept that they want all of your money. In the case that you go to see, say, a small jazz group, and they're selling self-produced CDs right there, in front of you, the situation is very different. In that case, the musicians may be struggling, and are actually depending on a kind of love and charity from their small fan base. To copy an album by such a group strikes me as pretty selfish, but I don't have a full enough grasp of the circumstances under which such a thing would arise to make anything approaching a blanket statement about the morality of the situation.
I agree that morality underlies every action, and that my statement that this has "nothing" to do with morality was a little bit strong. But what I'm trying to convey is that there are much more subtle forces at work than just whether copying music is right or wrong. It's a highly context-dependent personal choice that may or may not be justified given specific circumstances. Copying a CD for a friend may be both moral and legal under some circumstances, but these circumstances are not clearly set out and are made far more difficult to define since the advent of digital content, filesharing, and the sudden confusion about what exactly you're buying when you buy "a song." This confusion is part of the evolution of content into the digital world and if it's anybody's fault, it's the fault of the people selling the product--they can't figure out how to sell the same package to a world that is becoming drastically different and its slowly killing them as a result. If you can untangle the issues and confusions enough to make decisions that optimally benefit humanity and your personal integrity, do it--but I don't think that the people who can't should go to jail, or even be judged "in the wrong"--at least not categorically.
As for the whole issue of voting, of course what we do with our money matters. But it's not voting. In the case of voting, the only decision involves the final choice of candidate, whereas in purchasing decisions there are also factors of money, pleasure, and ambiguous moral and legal concerns--we are buying a product, not deciding on a leader.
You're totally missing the context of my comments...
That's a somewhat contrived and irrelevant scenario, though, as albums are much more reasonably priced. Hence, I purchase albums legally, as I said--what exactly do I need to take responsibility for beyond the support of the artists whose music I enjoy?
You are right. Sorry, I did not mean to imply (although I did) that you acquire all your music by pirating it. This alerts me to the fact that I have not categorically stated that I find it significantly less excusable for an individual to acquire all their music/movies/software through pirating, rather than the bulk of it by purchasing, and some of it through pirating. Personally, I do not find the latter entirely acceptable either, but you are right that the issue is highly complex.
Quote:
Originally posted by Duckspeak
but I don't think that the people who can't should go to jail.
I know that you are not implying that I said this, but just for the record, neither do I. (unless we are talking about organised crime, selling thousands or millions of copies of pirated goods).
Quote:
Originally posted by Duckspeak
As for the whole issue of voting, of course what we do with our money matters. But it's not voting. In the case of voting, the only decision involves the final choice of candidate, whereas in purchasing decisions there are also factors of money, pleasure, and ambiguous moral and legal concerns--we are buying a product, not deciding on a leader.
Indeed, they are not exactly the same. But there are parallels, which I highlighted, which help to support my view.
Comments
Originally posted by Mr. H
If I understood the original poster correctly, the pirated DVDs that they have are unavailable for purchase in their country. The DVDs that they do not wish to lend to their friend, however, are, and they have purchased them. I think that that makes a difference and therefore the original poster could be argued not to be a hypocrite.
Nice try but no way. It does not matter which DVDs the friend wants to copy. The fact is, the poster participates in illegal distribution when it suits him. I use the present tense because he still has the DVDs and does not seem to be willing to give them up. He thinks it is OK because he can't acquire legal ones. The moral answer would be not to acquire them at all. Therefore, he is saying that his friend's moral justification for stealing is not as good as his own. That is what I am calling hypocrisy.
Enough of that.
Let's talk about the industry. You mentioned fair distribution of income. Let's start there. I am not a redistributionist. I do believe in an honest day's pay for an honest day's work. IMO, the day's work of entertainers is way over valued. The whole idea of becoming a famous entertainer for most people trying to get there is to bask in limelight and glory that is largely unearned. They want more sex than any person needs. They want more money than they can spend. They want more material things than they can use. They ultimately become caricatures of human beings. This is not the purpose for which God gave us talent. Art and entertainment is intended for the public good just like sanitation or education. I understand that this is a minority point of view, but bear with me. I am a musician, singer, songwriter. I want my work published and I want to be heard. What I don't want is to become some kind of idol to be worshiped by the masses. There was a time when I wanted that. But i"ve grown up since then. If it stopped there, then I would be all set. There are now lots of ways for me to share my talents. What complicates the issue is that I also want to get paid. I have no idea what the best way is to go about that. But the current schemes mostly involve my publisher or producer getting rich, not me.
This takes us to the other problem associated with getting paid. Should entertainers even be trying to "get rich"? I don't think so. Exploiting our talent to extort more money than it is worth is a much bigger moral issue than anything we decide regarding digital rights management. Greed drives we musicians to demand payment every time someone is blessed enough to hear our greatness. Hear us on the radio, we get paid. Hear us on TV, we get paid. Hear us live, we get paid. Hear someone else singing a song or playing any part of a song we had anything to do with, we get paid. A church makes a few copies of the sheet music so their choir can use it, we get paid. Throw in distribution and you open a whole new can of worms. Listen to it in a CD player connected to your home stereo, we get paid. They don't want you to be able to use that disk in your computer... so... Listen to it on your computer, go to iTunes and buy another copy, we get paid again. Listen to it on your cell phone, we get paid again. Want it on SACD or ADVD, we get paid yet again. It never ends. All this because we wrote, performed, and recorded one song that only took a few hours at most. For this, we want to get paid for every person, every time they think about the song for the rest of our lives, and beyond. INSANE!!!
Doctors get paid a lot. But they only get paid for the procedures they do and other measurable activities. They get paid for saving your life, not for every breath you take afterward. Athletes get paid for the games they play and advertisements they do. They get paid to entertain you. They do not get paid for the number of times you relive the big score or for the pride you carry with you. Entertainers should get a fair wage for the content they produce. They produce it once. They should get paid once. Once they are paid, everything else is just distribution. This applies to everyone else in the food chain. These days, distribution costs next to nothing. Coincidentally, that is about how much people are willing to pay for the distribution of music, and now movies. In my brave new world, I am uncertain what fair pay for entertainers looks like. I am certain that compensation from obscene distribution taxes is not it.
I find it disappointing, however, that you ignored this comment:
Originally posted by Mr. H
I would find this argument easier to accept if you did not consume the output of said industry. It seems a bit contradictory to me: "The industry sucks. Their product is crap". "But I'm going to consume said product anyway".
Do you have a response? Did I over-simplify?
Originally posted by Mac Voyer
They don't want you to be able to use that disk in your computer... so... Listen to it on your computer, go to iTunes and buy another copy, we get paid again.
I don't think that any of the anti-copy technologies that have been tried have attempted to stop you from listening to the music on your computer. Not that I'm defending CD anti-copy. It is retarded.
It is also a shame that you talked only about the income of the artist, and not of any of the other workers who support said artist. How should they earn their income?
There are literally thousands of record companies. Are you saying that none of them offer a fair deal to their artists?
In response to whether artists should get rich or not, I would say that there are considerable risks associated with trying to be a musician as a full-time job (if you are not popular you won't earn much money), and significant potential benefits should accompany those risks.
Originally posted by Mr. H
I would find this argument easier to accept if you did not consume the output of said industry. It seems a bit contradictory to me: "The industry sucks. Their product is crap". "But I'm going to consume said product anyway".
Sometimes you have no choice. Some people think WinXP is crap and they think the company producing WinXP sucks but they have no other choice because their work requires them to use it.
Same thing with music. People need music. People want to listen to the music they like. And if the music they like is owned by a label with less-then-a-stellar record, that doesn't mean that they should give up music, grow a beard, and go to Alaska deer-hunting.
Originally posted by Gene Clean
Sometimes you have no choice. Some people think WinXP is crap and they think the company producing WinXP sucks but they have no other choice because their work requires them to use it.
True. *sobs*
But anyway... this is the right response to the rather nitpicking criticism that somehow we're voting with our money. We're not--we're buying music. The idea of boycotting a label is pretty stupid:
"Hey, what do you think of the new Daft Punk album?"
"My beliefs don't allow me to listen to that album, as it isn't sold and distributed according to my basic standards of decency."
(for the record, I have no idea how Daft Punk's albums are distributed)
Just think of how hard vegetarians (not to mention vegans) have it sometimes, and that's a distinction that actually means something. If I felt strongly enough about it, I definitely wouldn't boycott artists that I enjoy listening to--but I would steal the music. I think that taking that kind of stand is pointless while there aren't very good alternatives, though.
One exception to that: allofmp3.com. Is it legal? Is it ethical? Nobody's quite sure... but I have a much easier time spending $20 there than $20 anywhere else--something those in the music business should think long and hard about.
Does my ownership of a couple illegal DVDs obligate me to participate in future copyright breaches or make me some sort of hypocrite? [/B]
What do you care what other people think? If you feel uncomfortable, be it because it is illegal, or because your butt itches, don't do it and who gives a &*&$%? You're not an unpopular high-school freshman anymore!
If your friend can't deal with you being uncomfortable, maybe it's time to reevaluate whether they're really your friend?!
Originally posted by Mr. H
Good post, Mac Voyer.
I find it disappointing, however, that you ignored this comment:
Do you have a response? Did I over-simplify?
I don't think that any of the anti-copy technologies that have been tried have attempted to stop you from listening to the music on your computer. Not that I'm defending CD anti-copy. It is retarded.
It is also a shame that you talked only about the income of the artist, and not of any of the other workers who support said artist. How should they earn their income?
There are literally thousands of record companies. Are you saying that none of them offer a fair deal to their artists?
In response to whether artists should get rich or not, I would say that there are considerable risks associated with trying to be a musician as a full-time job (if you are not popular you won't earn much money), and significant potential benefits should accompany those risks.
Yes. You did oversimplify. But I love you anyway.
In general, music is getting worse. Older movies seem to tell a better story and are better acted than the modern remake of the same movie. That does not make it all bad. Even some of the bad stuff is still good for a few laughs. Perhaps we should pay based on the number of laughs or tears or sharp intakes of breath a movie rings out of us. Anyway, I do pay to see the movies I watch. I pay at the box office. I pay at the rental store. I pay the cable bill. I buy the products the advertisers imprint on my sub-conscience. If the artists and engineers and costume designers and the make-up artists and not getting their fair share, THAT'S NOT MY FAULT! Blame it on the Mob boss studio head who insists on having five new summer homes a year instead of settling for four. Don't tell me that my paying for yet another copy, this time in digital form, is going to fix the problem or make anyone happy. The first thing we heard after iTunes went video was the union people crying foul. It didn't take long before everyone starting demanding a bigger piece of the pie. No, Mr. H. The system is completely broken. Making fat-cat studio execs even richer will not help anyone you care about. The industry will only respond to pressure. It is up to the market to apply that pressure. And I absolutely refuse to let people like them tell people like us what is moral. As far as what's legal... All of us ever only obey the laws that make sense to us at the time. That is how it is with traffic laws, prostitution, recreational drugs use, and anything else that you can think of. Prohibition proved to be a bad idea and what was legal had to be redefined to accommodate real life. The same will happen with digital rights and copy right laws. We have a long way to go before morality can be judged or legality determined.
Originally posted by Gene Clean
Same thing with music. People need music. People want to listen to the music they like. And if the music they like is owned by a label with less-then-a-stellar record, that doesn't mean that they should give up music, grow a beard, and go to Alaska deer-hunting.
No, people do not need music.
Originally posted by Duckspeak
I definitely wouldn't boycott artists that I enjoy listening to--but I would steal the music.
Just clarify for me: you are saying that you steal from record labels because you think they are ripping you off? But do you think that artists, and everyone else involved, should be paid?
Originally posted by Mac Voyer
If the artists and engineers and costume designers and the make-up artists and not getting their fair share, THAT'S NOT MY FAULT!
I never said it was your fault.
Originally posted by Mac Voyer
Don't tell me that my paying for yet another copy, this time in digital form, is going to fix the problem or make anyone happy.
I don't know where this is coming from. I never said that people should have to pay twice to own something once.
Originally posted by Mac Voyer
Making fat-cat studio execs even richer will not help anyone you care about.
I did not say that, either.
I don't know why this is so hard for people to grasp. You talk as if the only thing that buying CDs/digital downloads does is line the pockets of the industry bosses. This is simply not true. It also pays the wages of the people who create, publicise and distribute the entertainment that you consume. No one has successfully explained why some people should get something for free when others have to pay for it.
You also talk as if the entertainment industry is the only one with "fat cats". This is not the case. This is a problem in most industries, due to a lack of sufficient government intervention in the capitalist system.
Originally posted by skatman
What do you care what other people think? If you feel uncomfortable, be it because it is illegal, or because your butt itches, don't do it and who gives a &*&$%? You're not an unpopular high-school freshman anymore!
some of us stay high-school freshman forever, albeit in a slightly more enlightened way. i care what people think about me, and if that makes me shallow and a shellfish, so be it.
Therefore, he is saying that his friend's moral justification for stealing is not as good as his own.
-Mac Voyer
quoting myself, earlier in the thread:
I've pretty much decided to let my friend copy the discs, with my logic being that it is inconsistant for me to justify my own purchase of a few bootleg DVDs with the fact that they can't be had any other way, when in fact, the girl who wants them has no other way of getting the DVDs. The only thing that is stopping me at this point is that I am mad at her for not asking me directly. But that's petty, and I know it.
Originally posted by progmac
some of us stay high-school freshman forever, albeit in a slightly more enlightened way. i care what people think about me, and if that makes me shallow and a shellfish, so be it.
Too bad for you then.
Originally posted by skatman
Too bad for you then.
if someone invites me over to their house for dinner, i expect them to have showered relatively recently, made some effort to rid up around the house, and serve something other than cereal. shallow?
Originally posted by Mr. H
No, people do not need music.
...
Just clarify for me: you are saying that you steal from record labels because you think they are ripping you off? But do you think that artists, and everyone else involved, should be paid?
I stick by my earlier example of a poor family stealing from a bookstore, again with the qualification that this is of course a less extreme situation. I agree with you--people do not need music, the same way people do not need textbooks. But there's something ignorant about that proposition--this should not be an argument about what we need vs. what we want, as that's a pointless and subjective distinction--I would argue that this should be about how people live and how they react to opportunities, costs, market pressures, etc.
But to answer your question, it isn't my responsibility to pay artists directly, nor is it my responsibility to self-police in order to make a dying business model stay profitable for a little longer. To be concrete: if I think a Wilco album costs too much, or if I have to own the content provisionally, I'll find another way to get the songs. It has nothing to do with the label, it has nothing to do with Wilco, and it has nothing to do with morality. I don't have to do this sort of thing much, because I have a good job and music is a high priority in my life, but owning music is no longer the same thing as owning a painting--it is now digital, transferable content, not a singular possession like an LP... leading me to my next point.
Steve Jobs believes that ultimately, in order to prevent piracy, you need to make it at least as easy to buy music as to steal it. Up until iTMS, this wasn't the case--it was simply faster to grab a song off Napster, Kazaa, etc. than to walk down the street and buy it. I don't use iTMS because they don't sell lossless files, but if they started doing it now I would probably stop using everything else. People have always bought albums when bootlegs were available, because the albums were of higher quality.
With the rise of mp3 players, people are listening to more music now than they have in decades. I think that this can only lead to a devaluing of individual songs and artists, something that I'm completely fine with, but that the industry has been resisting fiercely. People seem willing to pay $1 a track, but it's definitely too much these days. Online distribution is nearly free, and recording costs are plummeting with the advent of digital recording.
To really drive the point home that the business model is dying--it has always been the case that you could borrow a CD from a friend and listen to it a few times, then give it back. Well, in the digital world, the equivalent is to make a copy and delete yours, then copy it back and delete the old copy. Since I believe in fair use and owning music, I believe that you should be able to do this, by yourself and without the intervention of DRM. Of course, deleting the file is a silly thing to do--why not just leave it there and save the hassle? Plus, what if you give it to your friend on a burned CD and he loses it? You have the right to keep your own copy just in case. The only time, ever, that this comes into conflict with the old model, is if you, and your friend, happen to ever (heaven forbid!) play the song at the same time--then you've definitely done something illegal and should go to jail.
This model makes no sense. The only two ways out are to apply such extreme DRM that you essentially violate the concept of content ownership, or to move to another business model. Again, I like what I see at allofmp3--it's so cheap to buy an album that my girlfriend and I have each bought our own copy of several albums, because it is literally easier to buy it online, on our own time, then to deal with the hassle of transferring them between our laptops.
Originally posted by Duckspeak
I ...But to answer your question, it isn't my responsibility to pay artists directly, nor is it my responsibility to self-police in order to make a dying business model stay profitable for a little longer.
Correct.
The problem is not the consumer; it is the industry. I work for a for profit university. If enough people chose to educate themselves in some other way besides attending a university, that will have a deleterious affect on the livelihood of everyone connected to the education business. Admissions advisors and janitors alike will suffer. Still, education is another one of those industries that is living in a fantasy world from the past. The ones who do not adjust their pricing and delivery methods to the current reality will die. Good riddance! There are a number of industries in the cross-hairs of rapid change. The entertainment industry is but one of them.
So how should they get paid?
Again, I haven't thought this through so I expect there will plenty of fault to find in my theory as I am just making it up as I go.
Consider two opposing theories of compensation. There is production pay. This is pay you receive now based on work you do now. There is a one to one correlation between the work you do and the pay you receive. You can argue that the pay is not fair. But at least you know what to expect up front. Then there is royalty/override pay. This method pays you later based on the profits realized from the work you do today. The vast majority of Americans get some form of production pay. Even sales bonuses and commissions are a type of production pay. We know exactly what wage to expect for certain types and amounts of work we do. Personally, I favor production based pay and would like to see the entertainment industry adopt it in some way. Instead, they are a little like insurance companies. The allure of insurance sales is that you can work for a few years, become fully vested in the company, and live off of overrides from the policies you sold earlier. It almost never works out that way but that's the draw. One sale, many paydays.
Entertainers are worse. They too want to get paid perpetually for work they did once. Further complicating matters is the variable pricing scheme. Last week, band X's concert ticket was worth $20 for a 3 hour show. You supported them and told your friends about them. This week, they tell you that their tickets are now worth $50 for a one hour show. Next week... who knows? Your bought their CD last week and it was $10. This week you want to pick one up for a friend but now it is $18. You just bought an iPod and you friend, a Creative product. Your CD has copy protection so you can't rip it. This week it is $.99. Next week, if the industry has its way, it is $1.79. The madness never stops. Most of the peripheral people in the industry get paid some type of production pay up front for the work they do like regular folks. That is not a real issue. Piracy does not keep make-up artists from getting paid. Trust me. They get paid. What everyone in the industry is looking for is not a paycheck, but a jackpot. Entertainers want you to believe that their work is priceless and timeless. They don't want you to place a value on what they do because then their paycheck is finite. Currently, you never stop paying them. They graced you with their talent once. Now their in you pocket for life. It is a little like paying reparations. Unless you put a finite value on it up front, then you will never pay it off. It will never be enough.
Great topic. Keep it up. I'll be back.
Originally posted by progmac
I find it interesting that Mac Voyer believes that owning even one song for which you do not own the copyright OBLIGATES you to pony up anytime anyone asks for a copy of a CD or anything that you own. Do others feel this way?
i don't. just because we sometimes open pandora's box doesn't mean we can't try to stuff everything back inside and move on. i used to grab mp3's all the time when i had no money. now i have money, and i don't anymore, because it makes absolutely no sense for me to do so. i can afford it. just buy it. take responsibility for my actions, admit that my past actions were born of youth and nigh-poverty, and be done with it.
that's my ten cents. the first two cents are free.
Originally posted by progmac
if someone invites me over to their house for dinner, i expect them to have showered relatively recently, made some effort to rid up around the house, and serve something other than cereal. shallow?
How is that related to the pervious discussion?
You "expect them to have..."... you don't have feel uncofortable about that... you expect them and that is it!
If you feel uncomfortable that they haven't showered and smell like &*&^, and serve you cereal... get up and leave.
Originally posted by Duckspeak
But to answer your question, it isn't my responsibility to pay artists directly, nor is it my responsibility to self-police in order to make a dying business model stay profitable for a little longer.
In other words, you are unwilling to take responsibility for your actions.
Originally posted by Duckspeak
it has nothing to do with morality.
I find this bizarre. I believe that strictly speaking, morality has to do with every action. You may think that there is nothing wrong with it, but that doesn't mean it has nothing to do with morality.
Originally posted by Mac Voyer
The problem is not the consumer; it is the industry. I work for a for profit university. If enough people chose to educate themselves in some other way besides attending a university, that will have a deleterious affect on the livelihood of everyone connected to the education business. Admissions advisors and janitors alike will suffer. Still, education is another one of those industries that is living in a fantasy world from the past. The ones who do not adjust their pricing and delivery methods to the current reality will die. Good riddance! There are a number of industries in the cross-hairs of rapid change. The entertainment industry is but one of them.
The significant difference between this example and pirating from a record label is that in your example, people are aquiring their education from different sources. They are not "stealing" the education from your university when they should be paying for it.
Duckspeak mentioned earlier about how we were not "somehow voting with our money". Isn't it ironic, then, that I think there are significant parrallels with voting which might help to get my main point across.
Take the most recent government elections in the U.S. You can safely say to any one individual who voted, that their vote made absolutely no difference to the outcome of the election. Was their vote pointless? A waste of time? Worthless? In the same way, you can of course say that one man's piracy does not significantly affect anything. But in order for an industry to be able to pay its staff, it has to have an income. Someone has to pay.
Originally posted by skatman
How is that related to the pervious discussion?
it wasn't. i apologize for what was a late-night tangeant from me
Originally posted by Mr. H
In other words, you are unwilling to take responsibility for your actions.
I find this bizarre. I believe that strictly speaking, morality has to do with every action. You may think that there is nothing wrong with it, but that doesn't mean it has nothing to do with morality.
You're totally missing the context of my comments--that somehow the music industry would just fail to exist if everybody didn't charitably support it. I take full responsibility for my actions, but I have to act in a manner consistent with my mode of existence, my relationship to music, my sense of fair use, and my relationship to money/album pricing. In the most extreme case, (just for the sake of example) I would steal/pirate/copy/whatever albums if they cost $500--I would consider that outside of reason, but as someone who cares deeply about music, I would not be willing to give it up.
That's a somewhat contrived and irrelevant scenario, though, as albums are much more reasonably priced. Hence, I purchase albums legally, as I said--what exactly do I need to take responsibility for beyond the support of the artists whose music I enjoy?
You did pick a particularly badly worded part of my argument, though, as the argument basically only applies to the corrupt bulk of the distribution machine--you know what I'm talking about--which operates consistently with the precept that they want all of your money. In the case that you go to see, say, a small jazz group, and they're selling self-produced CDs right there, in front of you, the situation is very different. In that case, the musicians may be struggling, and are actually depending on a kind of love and charity from their small fan base. To copy an album by such a group strikes me as pretty selfish, but I don't have a full enough grasp of the circumstances under which such a thing would arise to make anything approaching a blanket statement about the morality of the situation.
I agree that morality underlies every action, and that my statement that this has "nothing" to do with morality was a little bit strong. But what I'm trying to convey is that there are much more subtle forces at work than just whether copying music is right or wrong. It's a highly context-dependent personal choice that may or may not be justified given specific circumstances. Copying a CD for a friend may be both moral and legal under some circumstances, but these circumstances are not clearly set out and are made far more difficult to define since the advent of digital content, filesharing, and the sudden confusion about what exactly you're buying when you buy "a song." This confusion is part of the evolution of content into the digital world and if it's anybody's fault, it's the fault of the people selling the product--they can't figure out how to sell the same package to a world that is becoming drastically different and its slowly killing them as a result. If you can untangle the issues and confusions enough to make decisions that optimally benefit humanity and your personal integrity, do it--but I don't think that the people who can't should go to jail, or even be judged "in the wrong"--at least not categorically.
As for the whole issue of voting, of course what we do with our money matters. But it's not voting. In the case of voting, the only decision involves the final choice of candidate, whereas in purchasing decisions there are also factors of money, pleasure, and ambiguous moral and legal concerns--we are buying a product, not deciding on a leader.
Originally posted by groverat
... What if a law is passed saying you must kill anyone you see who says "waffles are good"?
Well, as I do that already, I am truly a forward thinker!
Originally posted by Duckspeak
You're totally missing the context of my comments...
That's a somewhat contrived and irrelevant scenario, though, as albums are much more reasonably priced. Hence, I purchase albums legally, as I said--what exactly do I need to take responsibility for beyond the support of the artists whose music I enjoy?
You are right. Sorry, I did not mean to imply (although I did) that you acquire all your music by pirating it. This alerts me to the fact that I have not categorically stated that I find it significantly less excusable for an individual to acquire all their music/movies/software through pirating, rather than the bulk of it by purchasing, and some of it through pirating. Personally, I do not find the latter entirely acceptable either, but you are right that the issue is highly complex.
Originally posted by Duckspeak
but I don't think that the people who can't should go to jail.
I know that you are not implying that I said this, but just for the record, neither do I. (unless we are talking about organised crime, selling thousands or millions of copies of pirated goods).
Originally posted by Duckspeak
As for the whole issue of voting, of course what we do with our money matters. But it's not voting. In the case of voting, the only decision involves the final choice of candidate, whereas in purchasing decisions there are also factors of money, pleasure, and ambiguous moral and legal concerns--we are buying a product, not deciding on a leader.
Indeed, they are not exactly the same. But there are parallels, which I highlighted, which help to support my view.