If you want to discuss the issue on a purely economical scale, computers + the internet have eliminated scarcity in the music market. I'd argue that it's not quite there for video yet before broadband connections (on average) are faster. Scarcity is what really drives a lot of our economic system. There are only so many of a particular item, so a seller can set a price where he/she can make the most money while still allowing enough people to be able to afford the product.
In the case of downloading music, music is no longer a 'scarce' resource. It is easily copied and distributed to large masses of people. Schemes like DRM and such are only an attempt to 'put the genie back into the bottle' and re-modify the market to the benefit of the entertainment industry. But lack of scarcity means that people are no longer willing to pay a premium for their music. Of course, this doesn't mean ALL people. Just like their are people that would be willing to pay $40 per album, though few they might be, there are people that still pay for music when it is freely available for... free.
One thing that I haven't heard mentioned here is the purchase of used CDs. Some people in this thread say that they download to 'protest against the RIAA.' But if you buy a used CD, the RIAA gets no money. The person that first purchased it gave the RIAA money, but you have not given them any more money. Just seems to me that in some cases, "I hate the RIAA, so it's morally right for me to pirate music" is just a personal justification for "I want music for free." I'm not trying to label everyone here, but there is some segment of people that pirate who only use such 'high moral themes' as justification for not paying rather than really feeling any sense of moral duty to 'fight the man.' If you really wanted to 'fight the man' you could only listen to radio and go to concerts, ignoring CDs/Vinyl/Cassettes/etc.
Another point, if you think that you have the 'moral high-ground' and that the current laws are sufficiently immoral, then are you willing to protest openly and possibly go to jail for your beliefs?
Off-Topic (for this post):
Goverat, I'm curious as to how you determine what to download and what to buy. It was asked of you, but I don't remember reading an answer.
One thing that I haven't heard mentioned here is the purchase of used CDs. Some people in this thread say that they download to 'protest against the RIAA.' But if you buy a used CD, the RIAA gets no money. The person that first purchased it gave the RIAA money, but you have not given them any more money.
Well... sort of. By buying used CDs you're creating more of a market for used CDs, making new CDs more valuable. (as it is now easier to recoup costs later) Hence you're driving the sale of CDs and making a profit for the RIAA.
I do agree that you're better off buying used CDs if you're trying to fight the man, but you're really oversimplifying.
So you mean, you just straight do not comprehend, or you comprehend but disagree?
Good post Mac Voyer.
As far as I can tell, these are anti-capitalist sentiments. I find that whilst communist ideals seem fantastic in theory, they fail to take account of some of the uglier sides of humanity, such as greed and laziness. Capitalism, on the other hand, panders somewhat to these things (but that is not the only thing that makes it work). As such, I think that capitalism is the least-bad solution for running society, but as it stands there is not enough government intervention to stop it getting out of control.
Given that there is a capitalist economic system, there are great risks involved in deciding to become an actor or a singer. If you do not achieve sufficient recognition, your income is likely to be highly sporadic, and on average relatively low. As such, I feel that there need to be potential rewards proportionate to the level of risk involved, to encourage sufficient numbers of people to be actors, singers etc.
This is where I see an innherent problem. Our society is almost purely (but not quite entirely) capitalistic. The problem, as has been stated, is that the system demands that we commoditize art. Now while your thinking about that, think about this: Most forms of art (not necessarily entertainment, but 'art') today do not exist thanks to our capitalistic system, but solely by the good graces of donors who felt compelled to set up foundations which can guarantee funding for a museum, orchestra, artist, scholarship, etc for a long time into the future.
I think that the issue that we come to is that we do not have a good means of supporting our artists and entertainers while still making their works available to the vast public for appreciation and enjoyment. It was much easier (or harder, depending...) when music had to be heard live and recordings weren't an option. this at least was a mechanism for the control of distrubtion. Maybe it will turn out that subscription models are best in the end. everyone pays for access to a catalogue of music, just like you might have paid for a subscription to the symphony (or still do).
[B]This is where I see an innherent problem. Our society is almost purely (but not quite entirely) capitalistic.
Not true at all. People in power brainwash masses (especially in US) that that is the way it is, but all of the trully great things that were ever done (great science, great art, great technology, great business ventures) were done not because of capitalism, but because people strongly belived in a vision regardless whether they rich or poor and whether they lived under "catpitalism", "socialism", or another econo-polit framework.
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The problem, as has been stated, is that the system demands that we commoditize art.
No. People in power push junk and commodity as "art" upon the undereducated masses. Let's not confuse the 2 notions.
They spend great money to make sure the mass of people as a whole can't tell art from junk. If that was not the case, I would see at least as many people in musiums as I would at Snoop Dogg concerts.
Capitalism is an economic- political system, not an ideology! You can have different ideologies under the same economic- poilitical system.
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supporting our artists and entertainers while still making their works available to the vast public for appreciation and enjoyment.
That is because there are very few true artists and there are few people who can appreciate art and can tell art from commodity. The reason is that "the system" does a good job of jamming the garbage down people's throats using it's vast distribution network. You don't get to choose what you want presented to you anywhere you go! They do! In time, it gets to you... the only way not to give in is to always stay ahead of the game and to always work at yourself. There are very few people like that!
I refer you to my first post in this thread. Or does that not go far enough?
Mr. H.,
I find that your definition of "morality" is unusable. It does not tell me what to do in a particular situation, nor does it realy on something absolute that nobody can refute.
One can always say that morality depends on your views, upbringing, religion, etc... but this doesn't contain any useful information since we're talking about interacting with a phisical world, and thus, any system of logic, in this case "morality", must be based on physical reality and observable, and measurable things.
Otherwise, morality is irrelevant as far as logic for carrying out phisical actions, since one can't determine such actions in advance based on "morality".
I, propose that morality is a system that determines what action a person must take.
To determine the course of action a person is guided by 1 core principle: survival and procreation. More concretely, the these become: competition for food, and competition for mates. Thus, the course of action one must take, should be towards increasing one's competitiveness in the 2 fields.
These, are fo course, disguised by the society infrustructure.
For centuries people prefered to use religion for this. These days, science and technology delivers on physical promises much better than religion does, but doesn't do as great of a job in terms of ideology (if it did, US would not have that many problem in Iraq).
There is not one road to becoming more competitive, but in the end, it is those two principles that are at the core of morality and I can't seem to find an example to the contrary.
One can always say that morality depends on your views, upbringing, religion, etc... but this doesn't contain any useful information since we're talking about interacting with a phisical world, and thus, any system of logic, in this case "morality", must be based on physical reality and observable, and measurable things.
This is somewhat sick thinking. Interaction with the physical world is not based on unassailable systems of logic based on measurement, it's based on some combination of instinct, language, and the iterative formation of vague theoretical models and the testing of such against the world--this is accomplished mainly by intuition, (a subtle neurological phenomenon that will probably not be understood by any science 50 years from now) and not measurement.
Possibly the only field that meets your criteria for a "system of logic" is physics. (even physics may fail, actually) Even chemistry, which by any definition should be a science "based on physical reality," is not completely predictive, ("nobody can refute") nor prescriptive, ("tell(s) me what to do") as you can ask a chemist how to best accomplish some well-defined reaction A-->B and he'll have to say, "I don't know--try some stuff out and see what works best. The ambient temperature, the atmospheric pressure, the presence of unknown chemical catalysts, the rate at which it is stirred, and several other things will affect the result in ways too complicated to predict ahead of time."
Morality is, by far, more difficult to model than chemistry. There are a lot of books on the subject--I'd recommend Zen and the Art of Motorcyle Maintenance and the sequel, Lila, although they certainly don't go as deeply as anything you'd read in a college-level philosophy class that uses primary sources.
If you can't think of any counterexample to a model in which behavior is determined only by survival and procreation, here's one: someone who sacrifices their life for another. (or their society) Given your model, this should be impossible unless the other is their descendant. It also fails to explain why art has any value, and without that point I don't think you'll really get anywhere in this discussion.
Sorry for all of that, but simplistic "objective" explanations for how the world "really" works--especially those that co-op science for no reason but to make their point sound more legitimate--are a pet peeve of mine.
I think that the issue that we come to is that we do not have a good means of supporting our artists and entertainers while still making their works available to the vast public for appreciation and enjoyment.
Yes, in fact we do. It's called "live performance concerts." Artists generally make more cash off touring than they do off of record contracts, although not always.
I find that your definition of "morality" is unusable. It does not tell me what to do in a particular situation, nor does it realy on something absolute that nobody can refute.
Well, that was kind of my point. I don't believe that there is anything, such as GOD, Karma, Mother Nature etc., that has concretely defined morality. In this case, you need to develop your own sense of morality, lest you become a mindless reproductive automaton.
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Originally posted by skatman
any system of logic, in this case "morality", must be based on physical reality and observable, and measurable things.
Otherwise, morality is irrelevant as far as logic for carrying out phisical actions, since one can't determine such actions in advance based on "morality".
Morality does not equal Logic
Logic can be used once you have decided upon your system of morality. Given the things that I have decided in terms of morality, how does logic say I should behave in a particular situation?
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Originally posted by skatman
I, propose that morality is a system that determines what action a person must take.
I almost agree. Morality is a system that determines what action a person should take. If you're Christian, it determines what action you should take if you want to avoid going to Hell. If you believe in Karma, it determines what action you should take if you want to avoid "bad shit" happening to you. If you don't believe there are any external consequences to "immoral" actions, then I suppose morality is a system that determines what action a person should take if they don't want to feel guilty.
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Originally posted by skatman
To determine the course of action a person is guided by 1 core principle: survival and procreation.
I think that these things drive human beings, and in fact all life in general, on a sub-conscious level (if the living thing in question has a brain). Morality has more to do with conscious decision making.
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Originally posted by skatman
No. People in power push junk and commodity as "art" upon the undereducated masses. Let's not confuse the 2 notions.
They spend great money to make sure the mass of people as a whole can't tell art from junk. If that was not the case, I would see at least as many people in musiums as I would at Snoop Dogg concerts.
I find this an alarmingly cynical point of view. Do you really think that record-company bosses sit around thinking up ways to ensure that "people as a whole can't tell art from junk" on a conscious level? Anyway, separating "art" from "junk" is entirely subjective.
Well... sort of. By buying used CDs you're creating more of a market for used CDs, making new CDs more valuable. (as it is now easier to recoup costs later) Hence you're driving the sale of CDs and making a profit for the RIAA.
I do agree that you're better off buying used CDs if you're trying to fight the man, but you're really oversimplifying.
For many folks it is purely economic, used CDs are like $3-10, depending on popularity and where you shop, and (in the gray area) a few people also sell the CDs back after ripping them -- thus a $6 CD costs only say $4 after the "trade in" credit
And oh yeae, used CDs have far better fidelity than iTms.
A couple other legal grey areas that people really haven't brought up:
Out of print CDs
How do you feel on the downloading of out-of-print CDs? I personally don't have any problems downloading rips of them. Sure it's technically illegal to download them, but I can't buy them anywhere. Especially ones that are pretty rare. I have mp3s of "The Legend of Zelda: Sound and Drama CD," for example. It's out of print, and rare. I've never seen it up on ebay, even as a bootleg burned copy. I've never even found a rip of it that was above 128kbps. If I ever saw the CD for a price that wasn't outrageous I would definitely buy it.
I guess a related note would be...
Out of print Comics
Lots of comics like the original Superman comics, etc are out of print. So really downloading them is the only way to have exposure to them seeing as getting your hands on the physical comics would be very expensive and flipping through the pages would decrease the value rather quickly.
Unreleased Copyrighted Tracks
A good example for this are the dumps of video game music you can find around. If the publisher never releases a soundtrack for that game, then how 'illegal' is it for you to download someone's rip of the score? Sure it's still a copyrighted work, but if they aren't going to provide a way for you to compensate them for their work, other than purchasing the game (which I would assume someone who wants the soundtrack separately already has done), then you have only one way of getting it.
Bootlegged Concerts that aren't 'Artist Approved'
I'm talking about bootlegs of concerts that the artists aren't allowing. I know that bands like The Grateful Dead and Dave Matthew's Band tip their hat to the bootleggers, but I'm talking about others that aren't as open.
I find this an alarmingly cynical point of view. Do you really think that record-company bosses sit around thinking up ways to ensure that "people as a whole can't tell art from junk" on a conscious level? Anyway, separating "art" from "junk" is entirely subjective.
What people don't realize is that the business model of the recording industry is to throw as many artists at the public as possible and hope that enough of them gain popularity to turn a profit. While the industry surely does well for itself and is by no means destitute, a lot of money that is made on popular artists funds the loses on artists that signed on, but never became popular (or popular enough to be profitable).
You also have to realize that the recording industry turned the music business into a business. Businesses don't like risk. This is why there are lots of popular artists/bands that seem to follow a cookie-cutter pattern. This is also why almost all the artists/band members that are heavily marketed are attractive. Sex sells, and in this case a good looking female pop star is likely to catch your eye and make you wonder what her music is like. It's all about business tactics and trying to make a buck on the music of their artists.
The real problem isn't that the executives are twirling their mustachios and laughing and their latest ingenious plot to take over the air waves. The real problem is that making music into an 'industry' has made it less of an art and more of a formulaic business model. This is leading the production of music further away from its artistic roots and more towards a stream-lined production line of audio entertainment.
Logic can be used once you have decided upon your system of morality. Given the things that I have decided in terms of morality, how does logic say I should behave in a particular situation?
Then what is morality? I think that is it logic to a person not familiar with the definition and rules of formal logic. Am I wrong?
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How do you feel on the downloading of out-of-print CDs? I personally don't have any problems downloading rips of them. Sure it's technically illegal to download them, but I can't buy them anywhere.
pyr3, if you read the fair use clause of DMCA, you will see that it is legal to copy copyrighted works they're not reasonably easily available to you through other copyright holder allowed channels. I believe that if the CD in out of print, the any court will conclude that these CDs are not "reasonably easily available". So it should not be illegal. Other things you mentioned fall into the same track except the last one since it's explicitely prohibited by the copyright holder.
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I find this an alarmingly cynical point of view. Do you really think that record-company bosses sit around thinking up ways to ensure that "people as a whole can't tell art from junk" on a conscious level? Anyway, separating "art" from "junk" is entirely subjective.
Not only do I think that is the case, I know from my connections. That is their business model.
Art vs. junk is subjective only on the short time scale. On the time scale of several generations of peeps, art becomes very objectively different from junk. There were MANY composers at the time Mozart... yet only Mozart and a few others are remember 100... 200... 300...... years from their time. I'm not saying we should boycott Snoop, Coolio, and Ace of Base... it's just that we should be real about the nature of things.
Not only do I think that is the case, I know from my connections. That is their business model.
Have you not contradicted yourself here? The end of pyr3's post said "The real problem isn't that the executives are twirling their mustachios and laughing and their latest ingenious plot to take over the air waves." This is my point. I'm not trying to say that the music industry is flawless, producing only high-quality art and run with the primary purpose of benefiting humanity. What I am saying is that people don't start with the objective "how do we make sure people can't tell the difference between junk and art". It might be the end result, but that doesn't mean it was the original aim.
The stuff you are referring to as junk, is, I assume, mainstream "pop" music. The thing is, whilst it is highly formulaic, it still takes considerable time to produce an album of such music. A truly talented individual, or group of talented individuals, should be able to produce an album in approximately the same time-scale. So why is it necessarily any better for the music industry to produce "junk"?
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Originally posted by skatman
Art vs. junk is subjective only on the short time scale. On the time scale of several generations of peeps, art becomes very objectively different from junk. There were MANY composers at the time Mozart... yet only Mozart and a few others are remember 100... 200... 300...... years from their time. I'm not saying we should boycott Snoop, Coolio, and Ace of Base... it's just that we should be real about the nature of things.
This is still subjective; i.e., it relies on people's opinions.
A couple other legal grey areas that people really haven't brought up:
Out of print CDs
How do you feel on the downloading of out-of-print CDs? I personally don't have any problems downloading rips of them. Sure it's technically illegal to download them, but I can't buy them anywhere. Especially ones that are pretty rare. I have mp3s of "The Legend of Zelda: Sound and Drama CD," for example. It's out of print, and rare. I've never seen it up on ebay, even as a bootleg burned copy. I've never even found a rip of it that was above 128kbps. If I ever saw the CD for a price that wasn't outrageous I would definitely buy it.
I guess a related note would be...
Out of print Comics
Lots of comics like the original Superman comics, etc are out of print. So really downloading them is the only way to have exposure to them seeing as getting your hands on the physical comics would be very expensive and flipping through the pages would decrease the value rather quickly.
Unreleased Copyrighted Tracks
A good example for this are the dumps of video game music you can find around. If the publisher never releases a soundtrack for that game, then how 'illegal' is it for you to download someone's rip of the score? Sure it's still a copyrighted work, but if they aren't going to provide a way for you to compensate them for their work, other than purchasing the game (which I would assume someone who wants the soundtrack separately already has done), then you have only one way of getting it.
Bootlegged Concerts that aren't 'Artist Approved'
I'm talking about bootlegs of concerts that the artists aren't allowing. I know that bands like The Grateful Dead and Dave Matthew's Band tip their hat to the bootleggers, but I'm talking about others that aren't as open.
Good point anyway. This is like the old (analog cassette tape)
days where people shared rare material, you couldn't buy elsewhere.
This is not a wrongy actually. This is spreading and sharing good
Not only do I think that is the case, I know from my connections. That is their business model.
Art vs. junk is subjective only on the short time scale. On the time scale of several generations of peeps, art becomes very objectively different from junk. There were MANY composers at the time Mozart... yet only Mozart and a few others are remember 100... 200... 300...... years from their time. I'm not saying we should boycott Snoop, Coolio, and Ace of Base... it's just that we should be real about the nature of things.
Ok. This paragraph seems somewhat contradictory. The first sentence makes it sound like you are saying that the recording execs are actively saying, "By jove, I've got it! Why don't we produce junk instead of art? We'll make billions! Bwahahahahahaha!" But then you go on to talk about music lasting the test of time. I highly doubt that the other composers that were around at the time of Mozart were saying to themselves, "I'll be rich and famous if I compose junk symphonies for the consumption of the general population."
You've got two conflicting themes in what you are saying. The first theme is that the RIAA member studios are actively trying to push junk at people for the sake of pushing junk at people because you have 'insider connections.' The second theme is that over the course of long periods of time, only substantial artists will be recognized for their extraordinary talent, and the rest will be largely forgotten. I'm not sure which theme is the one you are really trying to get across.
This is a multi-headed monster. We have been talking as if the music industry is a monolith. It is not. There are artists, producers, scouts and agents, broadcasters, and distributors. Hopefully, I haven?t left anyone out. Each of these groups has their own agenda. These agendas are often at cross-purposes. What is good for the artist is often not good for the producer. What is good for the producer may not suit the broadcaster or distributor. It is a small miracle that the system works at all. Even though our discussion involves the artist and producer peripherally, it mostly deals with the broadcaster and distributor. Those are the groups that seem most directly affected by copying and sharing.
Traditionally, we have gotten music in two very different ways, free and paid. When I say free, I mean to the end user. Radio is free. Media sales such as CDs and DVDs are not. Most people just don?t see the point of paying for what you can easily get for free. Free music has been available at least as long as the radio. The problem is technological convergence. The industry didn?t care about you copying a crappy FM signal to a crappy cassette. Come to think of it, they didn?t like that either. They just couldn?t do anything about it. Now consider copying digital FM onto digital media like a hard drive. You can now make near perfect copies of free broadcasts without ever having to pay a distributor. Our ability to make decent quality free copies has now converged with what we once had to pay for. If you have time, access to Internet radio as with iTunes radio, and a program like Audio Hijack, you can legally record as much free music as you want. Morally or legally, it should be no different than copying radio onto a tape deck or TV to VCR.
Enter the file sharing movement. To consumers of free entertainment, this just seems like the logical next step. Once upon a time, we had to pay for physical media, vinyl, magnetic tape, 8-track, CD, VHS, LD, DVD, to enjoy at our convenience. Without the physical media, there was no way for us to do this. Sharing music also required physical media. We accepted the escalating costs of entertainment-laden media because it was the only way to have entertainment on demand. When mp3 became a household word, the industry excrement hit the unstoppable file-sharing fan. All of a sudden, we no longer need Tower Records to sell us physical disks to get our music on demand fix. These people have been consuming free media all their lives. Now you want to convince them that they are criminals because they now use an Internet connection and hard drive instead of radio and tape. That?s not going to happen.
Consider this simple truth. You can?t sell people what they already have. Like it or not, the genie is out of the bottle and it is not going back in. Music on demand is now free for the taking and the rest of the entertainment universe is not far behind. It is just a matter of bandwidth and file sizes at this point. Tower Records and Suncoast will have to find another way to stay in business. The handwriting is already on the wall. Record companies made money from that model because they were hedging their bets that consumers would never be able to duplicate it for free. They had a good run. Time?s up! If their smart, they can still sell media or downloads or whatever. They just have to sell us something that we don?t already have. We have got convenience and quality. Perhaps they can sell us higher quality. Not a good bet since technological convergence will simply catch up with them again. The paradigm is shifting. The old system is broken. They are trying to use the law to hold back the tide. No one can legislate the tide. It is a law unto itself. All you can do is find different ways to ride it. The entertainment industry has to find a new way to ride the digital tide or get mercilessly crushed. That?s life.
This is a multi-headed monster. We have been talking as if the music industry is a monolith. It is not. There are artists, producers, scouts and agents, broadcasters, and distributors. Hopefully, I haven?t left anyone out. Each of these groups has their own agenda. These agendas are often at cross-purposes. What is good for the artist is often not good for the producer. What is good for the producer may not suit the broadcaster or distributor. It is a small miracle that the system works at all. Even though our discussion involves the artist and producer peripherally, it mostly deals with the broadcaster and distributor. Those are the groups that seem most directly affected by copying and sharing.
You know how the record company's model works right? The bands/artists still need to sell enough CDs to make back the 'loan money' that the studio gave them to create the album. So, if the band can't make that back, then it still affects them. I'm not sure if they can take earnings from live performances and put it towards that 'debt.' That's really the only way that is affects them though. Because unless they are a very popular band/artist, most of their money comes from the live performances which have value added just for being there, above and beyond even a bootleg recording of the event.
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Traditionally, we have gotten music in two very different ways, free and paid. When I say free, I mean to the end user. Radio is free. Media sales such as CDs and DVDs are not. Most people just don?t see the point of paying for what you can easily get for free. Free music has been available at least as long as the radio. The problem is technological convergence. The industry didn?t care about you copying a crappy FM signal to a crappy cassette. Come to think of it, they didn?t like that either. They just couldn?t do anything about it. Now consider copying digital FM onto digital media like a hard drive. You can now make near perfect copies of free broadcasts without ever having to pay a distributor. Our ability to make decent quality free copies has now converged with what we once had to pay for. If you have time, access to Internet radio as with iTunes radio, and a program like Audio Hijack, you can legally record as much free music as you want. Morally or legally, it should be no different than copying radio onto a tape deck or TV to VCR.
Things like copying music from the radio is somewhat different than copying from the internet. First, the radio usually plays only hits. Second, the radio stations usually don't play an entire album in close proximity to each other. So it's not very easy to get a whole album off of the radio, just a few popular songs. You could make all kinds of radio recordings and go through them to find all of the songs from a particular album and dub them all together on another tape, but that's an awful lot of work. That kind of works is a barrier to a lot of people. In the end you would end up wasting so much time in such a scenario that it would be better just to buy the album and not waste the time.
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Enter the file sharing movement. To consumers of free entertainment, this just seems like the logical next step. Once upon a time, we had to pay for physical media, vinyl, magnetic tape, 8-track, CD, VHS, LD, DVD, to enjoy at our convenience. Without the physical media, there was no way for us to do this. Sharing music also required physical media. We accepted the escalating costs of entertainment-laden media because it was the only way to have entertainment on demand. When mp3 became a household word, the industry excrement hit the unstoppable file-sharing fan. All of a sudden, we no longer need Tower Records to sell us physical disks to get our music on demand fix. These people have been consuming free media all their lives. Now you want to convince them that they are criminals because they now use an Internet connection and hard drive instead of radio and tape. That?s not going to happen.
Not many people used a radio and tape as opposed to just buying the album or copying a friend's album (tape-to-tape). Now, things like copying the albums of friends is a limited thing. It's rather localized and you are limited by the size of your friends' collections. Downloading 200GB of music from the internet is a whole different ballgame. It's one thing to buy a few albums yourself and copy some from friends, because this is on a very small scale. But when you talk about being able to download the entire history of music for free, it's another story.
You also have to realize that mp3 is a lossy format. I by no means consider 128kbps mp3 to be CD quality. If at all possible I want the CD, or at least a lossless rip in APE or FLAC. For most people this is good enough, especially if they are just using crappy computer speakers or a crappy audio setup. But people that have decent audio setups/systems will hear a difference between 128kbps and 192kbps let alone 320kbps or lossless.
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Consider this simple truth. You can?t sell people what they already have. Like it or not, the genie is out of the bottle and it is not going back in. Music on demand is now free for the taking and the rest of the entertainment universe is not far behind. It is just a matter of bandwidth and file sizes at this point. Tower Records and Suncoast will have to find another way to stay in business. The handwriting is already on the wall. Record companies made money from that model because they were hedging their bets that consumers would never be able to duplicate it for free. They had a good run. Time?s up! If their smart, they can still sell media or downloads or whatever. They just have to sell us something that we don?t already have. We have got convenience and quality. Perhaps they can sell us higher quality. Not a good bet since technological convergence will simply catch up with them again. The paradigm is shifting. The old system is broken. They are trying to use the law to hold back the tide. No one can legislate the tide. It is a law unto itself. All you can do is find different ways to ride it. The entertainment industry has to find a new way to ride the digital tide or get mercilessly crushed. That?s life.
I don't get how you want them to sell us something we don't already have. If they add content to DVDs or CDs that is above and beyond what is already there, people will just rip that content too and post it to usenet/p2p/bittorrent/etc. You have to realize that this is some of the reason that the movie industry is pushing for the HD quality video on disc. They want to try to lock it down so that you can't copy it at all, but also the file sizes would limit internet transmission of the HD content. Not like there isn't already sharing of it. I've seen HD episodes of TV Shows on usenet, but the filesizes are huge so the storage requirements to have even every episode of Star Trek, for example, would probably be in the TB range. DVDrips of that same content at 480p would be substantially smaller.
They can try to give us higher quality to give us your 'added benefit' suggestion, but eventually computer and internet bandwidth will catch-up. It will eventually be just as easy to pirate HD content, and the industry will eventually hit a wall with respect to the ability to provide higher quality content with larger filesizes.
[B]You know how the record company's model works right? The bands/artists still need to sell enough CDs to make back the 'loan money' that the studio gave them to create the album. So, if the band can't make that back, then it still affects them. I'm not sure if they can take earnings from live performances and put it towards that 'debt.' That's really the only way that is affects them though. Because unless they are a very popular band/artist, most of their money comes from the live performances which have value added just for being there, above and beyond even a bootleg recording of the event./QUOTE]
I do know how they make money. It's a bad system.
[QUOTE]Things like copying music from the radio is somewhat different than copying from the internet. First, the radio usually plays only hits. Second, the radio stations usually don't play an entire album in close proximity to each other. So it's not very easy to get a whole album off of the radio, just a few popular songs. You could make all kinds of radio recordings and go through them to find all of the songs from a particular album and dub them all together on another tape, but that's an awful lot of work. That kind of works is a barrier to a lot of people. In the end you would end up wasting so much time in such a scenario that it would be better just to buy the album and not waste the time./QUOTE]
Radio plays hits. So what? So does iTunes. So does Internet radio. So does bit torrent. There is nothing sacred about an album playlist. People are now empowered to make their own playlist. That is one of the liberating factors of file sharing.
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Not many people used a radio and tape as opposed to just buying the album or copying a friend's album (tape-to-tape). Now, things like copying the albums of friends is a limited thing. It's rather localized and you are limited by the size of your friends' collections. Downloading 200GB of music from the internet is a whole different ballgame. It's one thing to buy a few albums yourself and copy some from friends, because this is on a very small scale. But when you talk about being able to download the entire history of music for free, it's another story.
Excuse me, miss. Will you sleep with me for a million dollars?
Absolutely!
Great! How about a hundred dollars?
Never! What kind of lady do you think I am?
We've already establihed that. At this point, we are just haggling over price.
None of the points you make change the essence of copying and sharing. It is either right or wrong. At this point, we are just haggling over the amount. Copying one song from a friend next door is the same as copying a song from a stranger on the other side of the world. I have still copied one song. I assure you, some of my friends have rather extensive music and movie collections that if ripped, would go well beyond the TB range. I can copy one disk from their collection or one hundred. I would run out of disk space long before I ran out of material to copy. Why should it be legal for me to copy a HD full of my friend's disks and illegal for me to copy a few songs from a stranger? You say that we once had natural limits. We still do. Thanks to technological advances, the limits are much higher. We have already established that it is OK to copy and share. Are you prepared to say exactly how many and with whom? If technology was the limiting factor before, why not now? This is the industry's problem. Technology has caught up with them. They can't stuff the genie back into the bottle or change the rules in the middle of the game or stop technological progress because it is bad for their business model. The onus is on them to change their business model to accommodate the way the consumer uses tech. It is not on us to change the way we use tech to accommodate their business model.
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You also have to realize that mp3 is a lossy format. I by no means consider 128kbps mp3 to be CD quality. If at all possible I want the CD, or at least a lossless rip in APE or FLAC. For most people this is good enough, especially if they are just using crappy computer speakers or a crappy audio setup. But people that have decent audio setups/systems will hear a difference between 128kbps and 192kbps let alone 320kbps or lossless.
That only serves to bolster my point. Mp3 to Hard Drive is like FM to cassette. Better quality does not make copying wrong. Soon, we will have the bandwidth for loss-less sharing and the disk space for loss-less copying. Perhaps this will drive the industry to adopt better quality such as SACD or ADVD. They will be able to sell better quality only as long as it is out of reach for the consumer. Eventually, though, technological convergence will catch up with them again. The recording, broadcasting, and distribution industries have to change their paradigm in order to survive.
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They can try to give us higher quality to give us your 'added benefit' suggestion, but eventually computer and internet bandwidth will catch-up. It will eventually be just as easy to pirate HD content, and the industry will eventually hit a wall with respect to the ability to provide higher quality content with larger filesizes.
My point exactly.
The industry's days of being able to overcharge us for entertainment are numbered. TV and music on demand will happen. No one can stop it. The cable companies can get on board with that or continue to try and get $80 per month for a decent cable package. They will lose. Studios can keep charging close to $10 at the theatre and theaters can continue to charge $5 + for popcorn but they will lose. Music moguls can continue to charge $18 for a CD but they will lose. Comcast and CBS still can't get us CBS shows in HD. Everybody wants more money for less service. Keep it up. They will lose. They have practically been daring consumers to come up with alternatives. Consumers are responding. And in the end, no law will be able to save the industry from itself. They have sowed the wind. The time has come for them to reap the world-wind.
I selected your post here because it's very typical and it hits on a very important point.
You left unquoted the part where I said it's all just commentary on cuencap's post. He asserted copyrights do not matter to him. I said that since copyrights do not matter to him, and he'd rather make his friend spend $20 than just get the video for free, (this was the part with my personal opinion) is not acting like a friend at all.Quote:
At some point you have to determine your basic beliefs.
Do you? (material for a different thread I guess...)
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If you're religious, most religions I'm aware of are anti-theft, even when you don't approve of the owner ("give to Caesar what is Caesar's," etc). Most governments are also anti-theft, on the secular premise that without ownership to ideas, even the slightest form of capitalism breaks down.
Most governments are pro-whatever will increase their size and power, and are hardly yardsticks to use when looking for moral principles. The suggestion that capitalism would break down without copyrights and patents is just absurd. It has existed in a throttled form from the day the first voluntary trade was made between humans.
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I suppose that if you're an atheist and a communist, you have a very strong case to promote and encourage copyright violation. But most people are somewhat religious, somewhat capitalist, and try to be very helpful to their friends. That's really the issue at hand: do you want to "help out" your friends or do you have a higher motive not to.
...
Bringing the argument to economics is not productive. If you're a big believer in economics, you would fall into the 2nd belief category of the anti-theft crowd.
I am a capitalist. I very strongly support the ownership of property. Ideas are not property. Neither is the use of ideas.
Copyright and patents were invented to increase the volume and quality of work produced and available to the general public. Copyrights' and patents' way of supposedly accomplishing this is to hand the creator a limited monopoly to the use of the idea, in other words, restricting everyone else's use of it.
Law-imposed monopolies to further public good? Copyright and patents are socialist. For further proof, consider that you own a CD recorder and blank CD's, located in your house, on your property. Copyright restricts what you may do with these things, even when your action doesn't affect anyone else's property. Here we see that copyright undermines the right to property, which is the cornerstone of capitalism.
Comments
In the case of downloading music, music is no longer a 'scarce' resource. It is easily copied and distributed to large masses of people. Schemes like DRM and such are only an attempt to 'put the genie back into the bottle' and re-modify the market to the benefit of the entertainment industry. But lack of scarcity means that people are no longer willing to pay a premium for their music. Of course, this doesn't mean ALL people. Just like their are people that would be willing to pay $40 per album, though few they might be, there are people that still pay for music when it is freely available for... free.
Another point, if you think that you have the 'moral high-ground' and that the current laws are sufficiently immoral, then are you willing to protest openly and possibly go to jail for your beliefs?
Off-Topic (for this post):
Goverat, I'm curious as to how you determine what to download and what to buy. It was asked of you, but I don't remember reading an answer.
Originally posted by pyr3
One thing that I haven't heard mentioned here is the purchase of used CDs. Some people in this thread say that they download to 'protest against the RIAA.' But if you buy a used CD, the RIAA gets no money. The person that first purchased it gave the RIAA money, but you have not given them any more money.
Well... sort of. By buying used CDs you're creating more of a market for used CDs, making new CDs more valuable. (as it is now easier to recoup costs later) Hence you're driving the sale of CDs and making a profit for the RIAA.
I do agree that you're better off buying used CDs if you're trying to fight the man, but you're really oversimplifying.
Originally posted by Mr. H
So you mean, you just straight do not comprehend, or you comprehend but disagree?
Good post Mac Voyer.
As far as I can tell, these are anti-capitalist sentiments. I find that whilst communist ideals seem fantastic in theory, they fail to take account of some of the uglier sides of humanity, such as greed and laziness. Capitalism, on the other hand, panders somewhat to these things (but that is not the only thing that makes it work). As such, I think that capitalism is the least-bad solution for running society, but as it stands there is not enough government intervention to stop it getting out of control.
Given that there is a capitalist economic system, there are great risks involved in deciding to become an actor or a singer. If you do not achieve sufficient recognition, your income is likely to be highly sporadic, and on average relatively low. As such, I feel that there need to be potential rewards proportionate to the level of risk involved, to encourage sufficient numbers of people to be actors, singers etc.
This is where I see an innherent problem. Our society is almost purely (but not quite entirely) capitalistic. The problem, as has been stated, is that the system demands that we commoditize art. Now while your thinking about that, think about this: Most forms of art (not necessarily entertainment, but 'art') today do not exist thanks to our capitalistic system, but solely by the good graces of donors who felt compelled to set up foundations which can guarantee funding for a museum, orchestra, artist, scholarship, etc for a long time into the future.
I think that the issue that we come to is that we do not have a good means of supporting our artists and entertainers while still making their works available to the vast public for appreciation and enjoyment. It was much easier (or harder, depending...) when music had to be heard live and recordings weren't an option. this at least was a mechanism for the control of distrubtion. Maybe it will turn out that subscription models are best in the end. everyone pays for access to a catalogue of music, just like you might have paid for a subscription to the symphony (or still do).
i dunno. these are tough questions.
Originally posted by AppleCello
[B]This is where I see an innherent problem. Our society is almost purely (but not quite entirely) capitalistic.
Not true at all. People in power brainwash masses (especially in US) that that is the way it is, but all of the trully great things that were ever done (great science, great art, great technology, great business ventures) were done not because of capitalism, but because people strongly belived in a vision regardless whether they rich or poor and whether they lived under "catpitalism", "socialism", or another econo-polit framework.
The problem, as has been stated, is that the system demands that we commoditize art.
No. People in power push junk and commodity as "art" upon the undereducated masses. Let's not confuse the 2 notions.
They spend great money to make sure the mass of people as a whole can't tell art from junk. If that was not the case, I would see at least as many people in musiums as I would at Snoop Dogg concerts.
Capitalism is an economic- political system, not an ideology! You can have different ideologies under the same economic- poilitical system.
supporting our artists and entertainers while still making their works available to the vast public for appreciation and enjoyment.
That is because there are very few true artists and there are few people who can appreciate art and can tell art from commodity. The reason is that "the system" does a good job of jamming the garbage down people's throats using it's vast distribution network. You don't get to choose what you want presented to you anywhere you go! They do! In time, it gets to you... the only way not to give in is to always stay ahead of the game and to always work at yourself. There are very few people like that!
Originally posted by Mr. H
I refer you to my first post in this thread. Or does that not go far enough?
Mr. H.,
I find that your definition of "morality" is unusable. It does not tell me what to do in a particular situation, nor does it realy on something absolute that nobody can refute.
One can always say that morality depends on your views, upbringing, religion, etc... but this doesn't contain any useful information since we're talking about interacting with a phisical world, and thus, any system of logic, in this case "morality", must be based on physical reality and observable, and measurable things.
Otherwise, morality is irrelevant as far as logic for carrying out phisical actions, since one can't determine such actions in advance based on "morality".
I, propose that morality is a system that determines what action a person must take.
To determine the course of action a person is guided by 1 core principle: survival and procreation. More concretely, the these become: competition for food, and competition for mates. Thus, the course of action one must take, should be towards increasing one's competitiveness in the 2 fields.
These, are fo course, disguised by the society infrustructure.
For centuries people prefered to use religion for this. These days, science and technology delivers on physical promises much better than religion does, but doesn't do as great of a job in terms of ideology (if it did, US would not have that many problem in Iraq).
There is not one road to becoming more competitive, but in the end, it is those two principles that are at the core of morality and I can't seem to find an example to the contrary.
Originally posted by skatman
One can always say that morality depends on your views, upbringing, religion, etc... but this doesn't contain any useful information since we're talking about interacting with a phisical world, and thus, any system of logic, in this case "morality", must be based on physical reality and observable, and measurable things.
This is somewhat sick thinking. Interaction with the physical world is not based on unassailable systems of logic based on measurement, it's based on some combination of instinct, language, and the iterative formation of vague theoretical models and the testing of such against the world--this is accomplished mainly by intuition, (a subtle neurological phenomenon that will probably not be understood by any science 50 years from now) and not measurement.
Possibly the only field that meets your criteria for a "system of logic" is physics. (even physics may fail, actually) Even chemistry, which by any definition should be a science "based on physical reality," is not completely predictive, ("nobody can refute") nor prescriptive, ("tell(s) me what to do") as you can ask a chemist how to best accomplish some well-defined reaction A-->B and he'll have to say, "I don't know--try some stuff out and see what works best. The ambient temperature, the atmospheric pressure, the presence of unknown chemical catalysts, the rate at which it is stirred, and several other things will affect the result in ways too complicated to predict ahead of time."
Morality is, by far, more difficult to model than chemistry. There are a lot of books on the subject--I'd recommend Zen and the Art of Motorcyle Maintenance and the sequel, Lila, although they certainly don't go as deeply as anything you'd read in a college-level philosophy class that uses primary sources.
If you can't think of any counterexample to a model in which behavior is determined only by survival and procreation, here's one: someone who sacrifices their life for another. (or their society) Given your model, this should be impossible unless the other is their descendant. It also fails to explain why art has any value, and without that point I don't think you'll really get anywhere in this discussion.
Sorry for all of that, but simplistic "objective" explanations for how the world "really" works--especially those that co-op science for no reason but to make their point sound more legitimate--are a pet peeve of mine.
Originally posted by AppleCello
I think that the issue that we come to is that we do not have a good means of supporting our artists and entertainers while still making their works available to the vast public for appreciation and enjoyment.
Yes, in fact we do. It's called "live performance concerts." Artists generally make more cash off touring than they do off of record contracts, although not always.
Originally posted by skatman
Mr. H.,
I find that your definition of "morality" is unusable. It does not tell me what to do in a particular situation, nor does it realy on something absolute that nobody can refute.
Well, that was kind of my point. I don't believe that there is anything, such as GOD, Karma, Mother Nature etc., that has concretely defined morality. In this case, you need to develop your own sense of morality, lest you become a mindless reproductive automaton.
Originally posted by skatman
any system of logic, in this case "morality", must be based on physical reality and observable, and measurable things.
Otherwise, morality is irrelevant as far as logic for carrying out phisical actions, since one can't determine such actions in advance based on "morality".
Morality does not equal Logic
Logic can be used once you have decided upon your system of morality. Given the things that I have decided in terms of morality, how does logic say I should behave in a particular situation?
Originally posted by skatman
I, propose that morality is a system that determines what action a person must take.
I almost agree. Morality is a system that determines what action a person should take. If you're Christian, it determines what action you should take if you want to avoid going to Hell. If you believe in Karma, it determines what action you should take if you want to avoid "bad shit" happening to you. If you don't believe there are any external consequences to "immoral" actions, then I suppose morality is a system that determines what action a person should take if they don't want to feel guilty.
Originally posted by skatman
To determine the course of action a person is guided by 1 core principle: survival and procreation.
I think that these things drive human beings, and in fact all life in general, on a sub-conscious level (if the living thing in question has a brain). Morality has more to do with conscious decision making.
Originally posted by skatman
No. People in power push junk and commodity as "art" upon the undereducated masses. Let's not confuse the 2 notions.
They spend great money to make sure the mass of people as a whole can't tell art from junk. If that was not the case, I would see at least as many people in musiums as I would at Snoop Dogg concerts.
I find this an alarmingly cynical point of view. Do you really think that record-company bosses sit around thinking up ways to ensure that "people as a whole can't tell art from junk" on a conscious level? Anyway, separating "art" from "junk" is entirely subjective.
Originally posted by Duckspeak
Well... sort of. By buying used CDs you're creating more of a market for used CDs, making new CDs more valuable. (as it is now easier to recoup costs later) Hence you're driving the sale of CDs and making a profit for the RIAA.
I do agree that you're better off buying used CDs if you're trying to fight the man, but you're really oversimplifying.
For many folks it is purely economic, used CDs are like $3-10, depending on popularity and where you shop, and (in the gray area) a few people also sell the CDs back after ripping them -- thus a $6 CD costs only say $4 after the "trade in" credit
And oh yeae, used CDs have far better fidelity than iTms.
Out of print CDs
How do you feel on the downloading of out-of-print CDs? I personally don't have any problems downloading rips of them. Sure it's technically illegal to download them, but I can't buy them anywhere. Especially ones that are pretty rare. I have mp3s of "The Legend of Zelda: Sound and Drama CD," for example. It's out of print, and rare. I've never seen it up on ebay, even as a bootleg burned copy. I've never even found a rip of it that was above 128kbps. If I ever saw the CD for a price that wasn't outrageous I would definitely buy it.
I guess a related note would be...
Out of print Comics
Lots of comics like the original Superman comics, etc are out of print. So really downloading them is the only way to have exposure to them seeing as getting your hands on the physical comics would be very expensive and flipping through the pages would decrease the value rather quickly.
Unreleased Copyrighted Tracks
A good example for this are the dumps of video game music you can find around. If the publisher never releases a soundtrack for that game, then how 'illegal' is it for you to download someone's rip of the score? Sure it's still a copyrighted work, but if they aren't going to provide a way for you to compensate them for their work, other than purchasing the game (which I would assume someone who wants the soundtrack separately already has done), then you have only one way of getting it.
Bootlegged Concerts that aren't 'Artist Approved'
I'm talking about bootlegs of concerts that the artists aren't allowing. I know that bands like The Grateful Dead and Dave Matthew's Band tip their hat to the bootleggers, but I'm talking about others that aren't as open.
Originally posted by Mr. H
I find this an alarmingly cynical point of view. Do you really think that record-company bosses sit around thinking up ways to ensure that "people as a whole can't tell art from junk" on a conscious level? Anyway, separating "art" from "junk" is entirely subjective.
What people don't realize is that the business model of the recording industry is to throw as many artists at the public as possible and hope that enough of them gain popularity to turn a profit. While the industry surely does well for itself and is by no means destitute, a lot of money that is made on popular artists funds the loses on artists that signed on, but never became popular (or popular enough to be profitable).
You also have to realize that the recording industry turned the music business into a business. Businesses don't like risk. This is why there are lots of popular artists/bands that seem to follow a cookie-cutter pattern. This is also why almost all the artists/band members that are heavily marketed are attractive. Sex sells, and in this case a good looking female pop star is likely to catch your eye and make you wonder what her music is like. It's all about business tactics and trying to make a buck on the music of their artists.
The real problem isn't that the executives are twirling their mustachios and laughing and their latest ingenious plot to take over the air waves. The real problem is that making music into an 'industry' has made it less of an art and more of a formulaic business model. This is leading the production of music further away from its artistic roots and more towards a stream-lined production line of audio entertainment.
wow! I couldn't have said it better myself!
Morality does not equal Logic
Logic can be used once you have decided upon your system of morality. Given the things that I have decided in terms of morality, how does logic say I should behave in a particular situation?
Then what is morality? I think that is it logic to a person not familiar with the definition and rules of formal logic. Am I wrong?
How do you feel on the downloading of out-of-print CDs? I personally don't have any problems downloading rips of them. Sure it's technically illegal to download them, but I can't buy them anywhere.
pyr3, if you read the fair use clause of DMCA, you will see that it is legal to copy copyrighted works they're not reasonably easily available to you through other copyright holder allowed channels. I believe that if the CD in out of print, the any court will conclude that these CDs are not "reasonably easily available". So it should not be illegal. Other things you mentioned fall into the same track except the last one since it's explicitely prohibited by the copyright holder.
I find this an alarmingly cynical point of view. Do you really think that record-company bosses sit around thinking up ways to ensure that "people as a whole can't tell art from junk" on a conscious level? Anyway, separating "art" from "junk" is entirely subjective.
Not only do I think that is the case, I know from my connections. That is their business model.
Art vs. junk is subjective only on the short time scale. On the time scale of several generations of peeps, art becomes very objectively different from junk. There were MANY composers at the time Mozart... yet only Mozart and a few others are remember 100... 200... 300...... years from their time. I'm not saying we should boycott Snoop, Coolio, and Ace of Base... it's just that we should be real about the nature of things.
Originally posted by skatman
pyr3,
wow! I couldn't have said it better myself!
...
Not only do I think that is the case, I know from my connections. That is their business model.
Have you not contradicted yourself here? The end of pyr3's post said "The real problem isn't that the executives are twirling their mustachios and laughing and their latest ingenious plot to take over the air waves." This is my point. I'm not trying to say that the music industry is flawless, producing only high-quality art and run with the primary purpose of benefiting humanity. What I am saying is that people don't start with the objective "how do we make sure people can't tell the difference between junk and art". It might be the end result, but that doesn't mean it was the original aim.
The stuff you are referring to as junk, is, I assume, mainstream "pop" music. The thing is, whilst it is highly formulaic, it still takes considerable time to produce an album of such music. A truly talented individual, or group of talented individuals, should be able to produce an album in approximately the same time-scale. So why is it necessarily any better for the music industry to produce "junk"?
Originally posted by skatman
Art vs. junk is subjective only on the short time scale. On the time scale of several generations of peeps, art becomes very objectively different from junk. There were MANY composers at the time Mozart... yet only Mozart and a few others are remember 100... 200... 300...... years from their time. I'm not saying we should boycott Snoop, Coolio, and Ace of Base... it's just that we should be real about the nature of things.
This is still subjective; i.e., it relies on people's opinions.
Originally posted by pyr3
A couple other legal grey areas that people really haven't brought up:
Out of print CDs
How do you feel on the downloading of out-of-print CDs? I personally don't have any problems downloading rips of them. Sure it's technically illegal to download them, but I can't buy them anywhere. Especially ones that are pretty rare. I have mp3s of "The Legend of Zelda: Sound and Drama CD," for example. It's out of print, and rare. I've never seen it up on ebay, even as a bootleg burned copy. I've never even found a rip of it that was above 128kbps. If I ever saw the CD for a price that wasn't outrageous I would definitely buy it.
I guess a related note would be...
Out of print Comics
Lots of comics like the original Superman comics, etc are out of print. So really downloading them is the only way to have exposure to them seeing as getting your hands on the physical comics would be very expensive and flipping through the pages would decrease the value rather quickly.
Unreleased Copyrighted Tracks
A good example for this are the dumps of video game music you can find around. If the publisher never releases a soundtrack for that game, then how 'illegal' is it for you to download someone's rip of the score? Sure it's still a copyrighted work, but if they aren't going to provide a way for you to compensate them for their work, other than purchasing the game (which I would assume someone who wants the soundtrack separately already has done), then you have only one way of getting it.
Bootlegged Concerts that aren't 'Artist Approved'
I'm talking about bootlegs of concerts that the artists aren't allowing. I know that bands like The Grateful Dead and Dave Matthew's Band tip their hat to the bootleggers, but I'm talking about others that aren't as open.
Good point anyway. This is like the old (analog cassette tape)
days where people shared rare material, you couldn't buy elsewhere.
This is not a wrongy actually. This is spreading and sharing good
stuff.
my2cents
Originally posted by skatman
Not only do I think that is the case, I know from my connections. That is their business model.
Art vs. junk is subjective only on the short time scale. On the time scale of several generations of peeps, art becomes very objectively different from junk. There were MANY composers at the time Mozart... yet only Mozart and a few others are remember 100... 200... 300...... years from their time. I'm not saying we should boycott Snoop, Coolio, and Ace of Base... it's just that we should be real about the nature of things.
Ok. This paragraph seems somewhat contradictory. The first sentence makes it sound like you are saying that the recording execs are actively saying, "By jove, I've got it! Why don't we produce junk instead of art? We'll make billions! Bwahahahahahaha!" But then you go on to talk about music lasting the test of time. I highly doubt that the other composers that were around at the time of Mozart were saying to themselves, "I'll be rich and famous if I compose junk symphonies for the consumption of the general population."
You've got two conflicting themes in what you are saying. The first theme is that the RIAA member studios are actively trying to push junk at people for the sake of pushing junk at people because you have 'insider connections.' The second theme is that over the course of long periods of time, only substantial artists will be recognized for their extraordinary talent, and the rest will be largely forgotten. I'm not sure which theme is the one you are really trying to get across.
Traditionally, we have gotten music in two very different ways, free and paid. When I say free, I mean to the end user. Radio is free. Media sales such as CDs and DVDs are not. Most people just don?t see the point of paying for what you can easily get for free. Free music has been available at least as long as the radio. The problem is technological convergence. The industry didn?t care about you copying a crappy FM signal to a crappy cassette. Come to think of it, they didn?t like that either. They just couldn?t do anything about it. Now consider copying digital FM onto digital media like a hard drive. You can now make near perfect copies of free broadcasts without ever having to pay a distributor. Our ability to make decent quality free copies has now converged with what we once had to pay for. If you have time, access to Internet radio as with iTunes radio, and a program like Audio Hijack, you can legally record as much free music as you want. Morally or legally, it should be no different than copying radio onto a tape deck or TV to VCR.
Enter the file sharing movement. To consumers of free entertainment, this just seems like the logical next step. Once upon a time, we had to pay for physical media, vinyl, magnetic tape, 8-track, CD, VHS, LD, DVD, to enjoy at our convenience. Without the physical media, there was no way for us to do this. Sharing music also required physical media. We accepted the escalating costs of entertainment-laden media because it was the only way to have entertainment on demand. When mp3 became a household word, the industry excrement hit the unstoppable file-sharing fan. All of a sudden, we no longer need Tower Records to sell us physical disks to get our music on demand fix. These people have been consuming free media all their lives. Now you want to convince them that they are criminals because they now use an Internet connection and hard drive instead of radio and tape. That?s not going to happen.
Consider this simple truth. You can?t sell people what they already have. Like it or not, the genie is out of the bottle and it is not going back in. Music on demand is now free for the taking and the rest of the entertainment universe is not far behind. It is just a matter of bandwidth and file sizes at this point. Tower Records and Suncoast will have to find another way to stay in business. The handwriting is already on the wall. Record companies made money from that model because they were hedging their bets that consumers would never be able to duplicate it for free. They had a good run. Time?s up! If their smart, they can still sell media or downloads or whatever. They just have to sell us something that we don?t already have. We have got convenience and quality. Perhaps they can sell us higher quality. Not a good bet since technological convergence will simply catch up with them again. The paradigm is shifting. The old system is broken. They are trying to use the law to hold back the tide. No one can legislate the tide. It is a law unto itself. All you can do is find different ways to ride it. The entertainment industry has to find a new way to ride the digital tide or get mercilessly crushed. That?s life.
Originally posted by Mac Voyer
This is a multi-headed monster. We have been talking as if the music industry is a monolith. It is not. There are artists, producers, scouts and agents, broadcasters, and distributors. Hopefully, I haven?t left anyone out. Each of these groups has their own agenda. These agendas are often at cross-purposes. What is good for the artist is often not good for the producer. What is good for the producer may not suit the broadcaster or distributor. It is a small miracle that the system works at all. Even though our discussion involves the artist and producer peripherally, it mostly deals with the broadcaster and distributor. Those are the groups that seem most directly affected by copying and sharing.
You know how the record company's model works right? The bands/artists still need to sell enough CDs to make back the 'loan money' that the studio gave them to create the album. So, if the band can't make that back, then it still affects them. I'm not sure if they can take earnings from live performances and put it towards that 'debt.' That's really the only way that is affects them though. Because unless they are a very popular band/artist, most of their money comes from the live performances which have value added just for being there, above and beyond even a bootleg recording of the event.
Traditionally, we have gotten music in two very different ways, free and paid. When I say free, I mean to the end user. Radio is free. Media sales such as CDs and DVDs are not. Most people just don?t see the point of paying for what you can easily get for free. Free music has been available at least as long as the radio. The problem is technological convergence. The industry didn?t care about you copying a crappy FM signal to a crappy cassette. Come to think of it, they didn?t like that either. They just couldn?t do anything about it. Now consider copying digital FM onto digital media like a hard drive. You can now make near perfect copies of free broadcasts without ever having to pay a distributor. Our ability to make decent quality free copies has now converged with what we once had to pay for. If you have time, access to Internet radio as with iTunes radio, and a program like Audio Hijack, you can legally record as much free music as you want. Morally or legally, it should be no different than copying radio onto a tape deck or TV to VCR.
Things like copying music from the radio is somewhat different than copying from the internet. First, the radio usually plays only hits. Second, the radio stations usually don't play an entire album in close proximity to each other. So it's not very easy to get a whole album off of the radio, just a few popular songs. You could make all kinds of radio recordings and go through them to find all of the songs from a particular album and dub them all together on another tape, but that's an awful lot of work. That kind of works is a barrier to a lot of people. In the end you would end up wasting so much time in such a scenario that it would be better just to buy the album and not waste the time.
Enter the file sharing movement. To consumers of free entertainment, this just seems like the logical next step. Once upon a time, we had to pay for physical media, vinyl, magnetic tape, 8-track, CD, VHS, LD, DVD, to enjoy at our convenience. Without the physical media, there was no way for us to do this. Sharing music also required physical media. We accepted the escalating costs of entertainment-laden media because it was the only way to have entertainment on demand. When mp3 became a household word, the industry excrement hit the unstoppable file-sharing fan. All of a sudden, we no longer need Tower Records to sell us physical disks to get our music on demand fix. These people have been consuming free media all their lives. Now you want to convince them that they are criminals because they now use an Internet connection and hard drive instead of radio and tape. That?s not going to happen.
Not many people used a radio and tape as opposed to just buying the album or copying a friend's album (tape-to-tape). Now, things like copying the albums of friends is a limited thing. It's rather localized and you are limited by the size of your friends' collections. Downloading 200GB of music from the internet is a whole different ballgame. It's one thing to buy a few albums yourself and copy some from friends, because this is on a very small scale. But when you talk about being able to download the entire history of music for free, it's another story.
You also have to realize that mp3 is a lossy format. I by no means consider 128kbps mp3 to be CD quality. If at all possible I want the CD, or at least a lossless rip in APE or FLAC. For most people this is good enough, especially if they are just using crappy computer speakers or a crappy audio setup. But people that have decent audio setups/systems will hear a difference between 128kbps and 192kbps let alone 320kbps or lossless.
Consider this simple truth. You can?t sell people what they already have. Like it or not, the genie is out of the bottle and it is not going back in. Music on demand is now free for the taking and the rest of the entertainment universe is not far behind. It is just a matter of bandwidth and file sizes at this point. Tower Records and Suncoast will have to find another way to stay in business. The handwriting is already on the wall. Record companies made money from that model because they were hedging their bets that consumers would never be able to duplicate it for free. They had a good run. Time?s up! If their smart, they can still sell media or downloads or whatever. They just have to sell us something that we don?t already have. We have got convenience and quality. Perhaps they can sell us higher quality. Not a good bet since technological convergence will simply catch up with them again. The paradigm is shifting. The old system is broken. They are trying to use the law to hold back the tide. No one can legislate the tide. It is a law unto itself. All you can do is find different ways to ride it. The entertainment industry has to find a new way to ride the digital tide or get mercilessly crushed. That?s life.
I don't get how you want them to sell us something we don't already have. If they add content to DVDs or CDs that is above and beyond what is already there, people will just rip that content too and post it to usenet/p2p/bittorrent/etc. You have to realize that this is some of the reason that the movie industry is pushing for the HD quality video on disc. They want to try to lock it down so that you can't copy it at all, but also the file sizes would limit internet transmission of the HD content. Not like there isn't already sharing of it. I've seen HD episodes of TV Shows on usenet, but the filesizes are huge so the storage requirements to have even every episode of Star Trek, for example, would probably be in the TB range. DVDrips of that same content at 480p would be substantially smaller.
They can try to give us higher quality to give us your 'added benefit' suggestion, but eventually computer and internet bandwidth will catch-up. It will eventually be just as easy to pirate HD content, and the industry will eventually hit a wall with respect to the ability to provide higher quality content with larger filesizes.
[B]You know how the record company's model works right? The bands/artists still need to sell enough CDs to make back the 'loan money' that the studio gave them to create the album. So, if the band can't make that back, then it still affects them. I'm not sure if they can take earnings from live performances and put it towards that 'debt.' That's really the only way that is affects them though. Because unless they are a very popular band/artist, most of their money comes from the live performances which have value added just for being there, above and beyond even a bootleg recording of the event./QUOTE]
I do know how they make money. It's a bad system.
[QUOTE]Things like copying music from the radio is somewhat different than copying from the internet. First, the radio usually plays only hits. Second, the radio stations usually don't play an entire album in close proximity to each other. So it's not very easy to get a whole album off of the radio, just a few popular songs. You could make all kinds of radio recordings and go through them to find all of the songs from a particular album and dub them all together on another tape, but that's an awful lot of work. That kind of works is a barrier to a lot of people. In the end you would end up wasting so much time in such a scenario that it would be better just to buy the album and not waste the time./QUOTE]
Radio plays hits. So what? So does iTunes. So does Internet radio. So does bit torrent. There is nothing sacred about an album playlist. People are now empowered to make their own playlist. That is one of the liberating factors of file sharing.
Not many people used a radio and tape as opposed to just buying the album or copying a friend's album (tape-to-tape). Now, things like copying the albums of friends is a limited thing. It's rather localized and you are limited by the size of your friends' collections. Downloading 200GB of music from the internet is a whole different ballgame. It's one thing to buy a few albums yourself and copy some from friends, because this is on a very small scale. But when you talk about being able to download the entire history of music for free, it's another story.
Excuse me, miss. Will you sleep with me for a million dollars?
Absolutely!
Great! How about a hundred dollars?
Never! What kind of lady do you think I am?
We've already establihed that. At this point, we are just haggling over price.
None of the points you make change the essence of copying and sharing. It is either right or wrong. At this point, we are just haggling over the amount. Copying one song from a friend next door is the same as copying a song from a stranger on the other side of the world. I have still copied one song. I assure you, some of my friends have rather extensive music and movie collections that if ripped, would go well beyond the TB range. I can copy one disk from their collection or one hundred. I would run out of disk space long before I ran out of material to copy. Why should it be legal for me to copy a HD full of my friend's disks and illegal for me to copy a few songs from a stranger? You say that we once had natural limits. We still do. Thanks to technological advances, the limits are much higher. We have already established that it is OK to copy and share. Are you prepared to say exactly how many and with whom? If technology was the limiting factor before, why not now? This is the industry's problem. Technology has caught up with them. They can't stuff the genie back into the bottle or change the rules in the middle of the game or stop technological progress because it is bad for their business model. The onus is on them to change their business model to accommodate the way the consumer uses tech. It is not on us to change the way we use tech to accommodate their business model.
You also have to realize that mp3 is a lossy format. I by no means consider 128kbps mp3 to be CD quality. If at all possible I want the CD, or at least a lossless rip in APE or FLAC. For most people this is good enough, especially if they are just using crappy computer speakers or a crappy audio setup. But people that have decent audio setups/systems will hear a difference between 128kbps and 192kbps let alone 320kbps or lossless.
That only serves to bolster my point. Mp3 to Hard Drive is like FM to cassette. Better quality does not make copying wrong. Soon, we will have the bandwidth for loss-less sharing and the disk space for loss-less copying. Perhaps this will drive the industry to adopt better quality such as SACD or ADVD. They will be able to sell better quality only as long as it is out of reach for the consumer. Eventually, though, technological convergence will catch up with them again. The recording, broadcasting, and distribution industries have to change their paradigm in order to survive.
They can try to give us higher quality to give us your 'added benefit' suggestion, but eventually computer and internet bandwidth will catch-up. It will eventually be just as easy to pirate HD content, and the industry will eventually hit a wall with respect to the ability to provide higher quality content with larger filesizes.
My point exactly.
The industry's days of being able to overcharge us for entertainment are numbered. TV and music on demand will happen. No one can stop it. The cable companies can get on board with that or continue to try and get $80 per month for a decent cable package. They will lose. Studios can keep charging close to $10 at the theatre and theaters can continue to charge $5 + for popcorn but they will lose. Music moguls can continue to charge $18 for a CD but they will lose. Comcast and CBS still can't get us CBS shows in HD. Everybody wants more money for less service. Keep it up. They will lose. They have practically been daring consumers to come up with alternatives. Consumers are responding. And in the end, no law will be able to save the industry from itself. They have sowed the wind. The time has come for them to reap the world-wind.
Originally posted by Splinemodel
I selected your post here because it's very typical and it hits on a very important point.
You left unquoted the part where I said it's all just commentary on cuencap's post. He asserted copyrights do not matter to him. I said that since copyrights do not matter to him, and he'd rather make his friend spend $20 than just get the video for free, (this was the part with my personal opinion) is not acting like a friend at all.Quote:
At some point you have to determine your basic beliefs.
Do you? (material for a different thread I guess...)
If you're religious, most religions I'm aware of are anti-theft, even when you don't approve of the owner ("give to Caesar what is Caesar's," etc). Most governments are also anti-theft, on the secular premise that without ownership to ideas, even the slightest form of capitalism breaks down.
Most governments are pro-whatever will increase their size and power, and are hardly yardsticks to use when looking for moral principles. The suggestion that capitalism would break down without copyrights and patents is just absurd. It has existed in a throttled form from the day the first voluntary trade was made between humans.
I suppose that if you're an atheist and a communist, you have a very strong case to promote and encourage copyright violation. But most people are somewhat religious, somewhat capitalist, and try to be very helpful to their friends. That's really the issue at hand: do you want to "help out" your friends or do you have a higher motive not to.
...
Bringing the argument to economics is not productive. If you're a big believer in economics, you would fall into the 2nd belief category of the anti-theft crowd.
I am a capitalist. I very strongly support the ownership of property. Ideas are not property. Neither is the use of ideas.
Copyright and patents were invented to increase the volume and quality of work produced and available to the general public. Copyrights' and patents' way of supposedly accomplishing this is to hand the creator a limited monopoly to the use of the idea, in other words, restricting everyone else's use of it.
Law-imposed monopolies to further public good? Copyright and patents are socialist. For further proof, consider that you own a CD recorder and blank CD's, located in your house, on your property. Copyright restricts what you may do with these things, even when your action doesn't affect anyone else's property. Here we see that copyright undermines the right to property, which is the cornerstone of capitalism.