How do you feel about file sharing

[dinochick]

How do you all feel about the government (american only, as much as I have heard) cracking down on file sharing of music with such sites as Morphus and Kazaa?

[Evaders99]

File-sharing of copywrited material, when you have not bought the music, is illegal. This is stealing their work without profit due to the artist. I believe this is causing prices to go up, and continued stealing of such copywrited material hurts all artists trying to start. If you don't receive some compensation for your work, why do it? This will discourage the talents of many... who ultimately may decide to leave the industry. - I'm not talking about the major groups, who may make millions in music tours, but small groups or individuals trying to crack into the market.

 

File-sharing itself is perfectly legal. If I have my own files I want to distribute, this is fine. If I have shareware that allows the free distribution in its license, this is also legal.

 

Making a copy of software and music for backup purposes is also legal, as long as you have the original. If you distribute the original, you must destroy your backup. You cannot receive a backup unless you own the original.

 

Cracking down on file-sharing will, of course, not help stop the distribution of copywrited material. If not here, servers will be moved to overseas where they are protected from US law. Then they can do whatever they want. So like the casette tape, this I believe will continue to endure... new mediums will be released to counter such copying measures, further increasing the costs of the music. This hurts all consumers and all artists.

[dinochick]

Good points. I have to agree that what ever they do it will still go on forever. Some CD are "formatted" to only work in CD players, and not PC's, and this is agravating to me, as someone who listens to my CD's on my computer very often. I hope that they can find alternatives to this growing trend of "formatting."

[Guest Scathane]

Hmmm.... I can agree on the fact that downloading copywrited material without paying for the copywrite or other costs imbued is illegal and should remain so. However, I'm not so sure on sharing it...

 

For agument's sake, let's say that I went out to the store and bought an audio CD of Metallica. My good friend Evaders comes over one day, listens to my newly acquired piece-de-resistance and asks me can he borrow it? I agree. E goes home and copies my CD (on another CD). We can now probably agree that Evaders is punishable by law because he should have bought the CD himself. But what about me? In essence, I shared my files with him but I don't think I did anything illegal. You could ask the same about the people sharing their files now.

 

Let's now presume the same happened about 15 years ago: Evaders copied my Metallica record onto an audio tape. Did he do something illegal? Yes, he did because, strictly speaking, copying copywrited material is forbidden. Did we ever hear the record companies in those days? No we didn't, they thought it was all just fine. Why? because it didn't make their record sales dwindle that much (probably because we couldn't copy records onto records).

 

So there you have it: it's not about copywrited material as such, it's about decreasing sales. The sales problem record companies are facing today is there because they fail to come to grips with a new reality. Part of this new reality is new distribution channels, the freedom of compiling your own cd's, and lower prices. If I could download all new music legally, I immediately would because it would save me a lot of money: I wouldn't have to pay for costs made through cd mastering, booklet printing and photography, crystal case manufacturing, shop display and promotion, and all the labour that went into the aforesaid processes. The record companies could still make their profit because they wouldn't suffer the costs for these either. For reasons unknown to me, however, they fail to do so successfully (although one might suspect that record stores have something to do with it).

 

The same goes for software companies. On the one hand we hear Microsoft complaining that their software is being pirated... On the other hand, it is a know fact that Windows sells at no less than 85% profit!!! I can by Norton AntiVirus for about € 55 ($ 62.15) whereas I can buy Kapersky for € 46.10 ($ 52)! And mind you that, according to a recent test, Norton AV blocked only 65% of all viruses, whereas Kapersky blocked 84%, so this isn't about quality.

 

The point is that we see new companies with innovative initiatives arising every day. If record companies and stores do not deal with a changeing market situation, one of those new companies will...

[Sith_Lord]

Good points. I have to agree that what ever they do it will still go on forever. Some CD are "formatted" to only work in CD players, and not PC's.

 

As like the star wars E2 soundtrack, but there are still tracks available on kazaa

[Jahled]

One of my mates in my twenties was able to buy a house in a very middle class area of London on the back of being the sound track of a levis jeans TV commercial and subsequent first album. I'm not going to knock Nina for her artistic efforts (despite the fact one of my Batucada LPs was seriously sampled on Underwater Love... grumble), but I do get a bit bloody bitter when people who perform music suddenly get catapulted out of your average joe's day-to-day concerns (paying the rent, petrol, swetting about points on your licence...which I damn well am at the moment...) into being able to buy a house clean like that... If you need any persuading, how many of you have heared of the band Smoke City? Yeah right! Screw all of this concern for record companies, if i'm sat in a pub in London with Nina one year discussing her music, and the next she's had her lucky brake and inviting me to her her new house warming party.... no dis respect on my friend but us as your average joes don't have jumps in our careers like that.

[Guest Scathane]

no dis respect on my friend but us as your average joes don't have jumps in our careers like that.

Isn't that exactly why we call it average?

[Jahled]

The point I was making very badly is that the music industry is loaded, and it it's self is a pale shadow of the profits of the computer industry, which are more massive still.

 

All this fuss about the internet download lark is distracting from how massive their profits are. If the record industry need reminding how much power they've got, all they need do is cruise down places like Camden Lock in London, which I have the grim task of passing once a day, for the power they command.

 

An entire high street geared to the worship of particular musical tastes or trends... nod your head left or right, and it's the sad same thing, loads of kids dressing like they think they're 'upting out' or 'being unique,' and all they're doing doing is conforming to what the music industry wants of them; quite frankly, slavery to the style.

 

Stand back a sec and look on the effect of modern music on society.

 

You've got kids getting gothic and believing all types of shit on the back of the music-culture they're into, just as much as the skate board kids with their music and trends, and the goths with their deadpan musical tastes, and the folks into hip hop, acting like homeboy arseholes as if they're bad boys with attitude. People are slaves to music cultures, and it's grim.

 

And pathetic.

[Guest Scathane]

You've got a point, although I don't believe that this is unique to the music and software industries; we see this in virtually every consumer business. I am especially keen on what you said about kids today feeling unique and not taking any bs from anyone... Marketing and advertising companies have just discovered that. I read a Dutch advertising magazine recently, which featured an article about it; it was headed something like: Teenagers oblivious to advertising. What the article meant to say was that today's teenagers are less open to traditional advertising, they want to devide for themselves. So, this is exactly what advertising businesses are getting into: advertising that doesn't look like advertising...

 

And you know what they say: the best trick the devil ever played was making people believe he didn't exist...

[Jahled]

And you know what they say: the best trick the devil ever played was making people believe he didn't exist...

 

Quotes like this create huge smiles on my face, Scathe dude!WOO to you!