New Law Means Illegal Downloaders Face Life Internet Ban

>>If the record companies decided to put their heads together with ISPs, they could create a business plan that requires internet users with high bandwidth usage to pay a tax that goes directly to the artists.  But instead they blame (and often launch lawsuits against) people for using the technology that is at their fingertips.  And when they win those lawsuits, the artists don't see a penny of it.>>

There's nothing wrong with a lawsuit against stealing. The justification of the pirates is that stealing is OK just because it's easy with new technology, and that's why - strangely - the record companies should change their ways and improve, and not the ones who are actually breaking the law. Record companies probably do need some new ways to counter piratism, but there are already quite easy alternatives for the average consumer for illegal downloading.

>>Then you simply haven't noticed.  Many of the biggest acts of the 90s now release their music for free - Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam, and Radiohead.  Trent Reznor and Billy Corgan have both openly stated their strong distaste for record companies now that they're in the privileged position of not needing them anymore.  And don't accuse them of biting the hand that feeds them.  Their art is what made them famous.  Their fans couldn't care less which company financed the project at the start.  The record company was simply the vehicle that was available at the time to spread their art - the only vehicle available at the time.>>

Of course it's fine to release music for free. If those bands want to do it, that's great, and saves some of my money. But if they DON'T want to release it for free, we should respect that and pay for the music. It's up for the artists to decide. And the vast majority of musicians are not in the privileged position to release music for free (or don't want to release it for free even if they're already rich), but they want a paycheck for their work just like you want a paycheck for your work.

>>Of course.  Do you as a consumer not look for a good deal as well?>>

That good deal is stealing and it's still against the law. It's actually interesting to think how fast the society would collapse if there weren't institutions that force people to abide law. Obviously the average man's moral code is so low that if they had the chance they would just grab everything they wanted and would do whatever they wanted if they didn't have to fear police, justice system etc.

>>With all due respect.. you obviously don't know a lot of musicians then.  And I'm also guessing that you're not a musician, either.  Plenty of artists have no problem with their music being downloaded for free.  They see downloading as a form of marketing simply because their art is heard by people who otherwise may not have heard their art in the first place.  How's this for perspective - you currently see about 70% of your income, as you pay about 30% taxes back to the government.  How would you like it if you only saw about 10% of your income and someone else got 90%?  That's what the major label does to you if you sign to them.  Reason #967 why most artists go with indie labels.>>

It's funny because the artists on major labels tend to be richer than the ones on indie labels. Anyway I could quote my earlier post here, like I said if an artist chooses to be on a label (and most do) it's stupid for us to blame the company on behalf of the artist. It's ridiculous if we first accuse the record company of mistreatment of the artist and then we "help" the guy by stealing the album.

aion wrote: Raf wrote: Aion, on most occasions, nobody lost any money - do you really think if people couldn't download music they would actually buy all the albums they have actually downloaded?
If you don't pay for it, you shouldn't be able to enjoy it - it's simple. It's not at all different situation from e.g. stealing a car. It's not alright to steal a car just because you can't afford it or don't want to pay for it. Or do you apply this logic in other places as well, let's say the supermarket? 

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 If I steal a car or something from the supermarket, the original owner doesn't have it anymore. If a friend rips his favorite CD and send me the mp3 files, he's still got his CD. There was no loss involved... Just like there was no profit.

I think the fact that there was no loss makes it plain wrong to call music downloading "theft".

A very interesting discussion, I realise I did not consider all aspects of the issue concerning artist independence of record companies, the role of myspace etc. Still, I think I am with aion. I cannot imagine that many artists, even if they are very rich, like it when their product is downloaded for free and people do not pay. In the "old days" we copied albums on audio cassettes and swapped these cassettes on the school yard, simply because nobody could afford to buy all the albums. But it was not sharing an album with 1000s of people, just with a few friends. Also, the price of the cassettes already included a fee that was distributed to the artists in proportion to their actual record sales. Maybe it would be a solution if CD-Rs and DVD-Rs and even hard drives were sold with such a fee and the music industry and the movie industry were given a certain percentage of these sales to make up for possible losses due to pirating. This would be much better than enable government agencies to censor website content.

Honestly, YV, I'm not in favor of adding any such fee to recordable media, and certainly not to hard drives. I believe that music is headed very decidedly back to the past. Back in the old days, artists didn't release albums. They released singles. The logic was simple--why would you release a record wth ten songs on it when, realistically, only a couple of them will make it onto the radio? Back then, radio was absolutely where the money was, as record players were something for the elite. Even much of Elvis' early work was released as singles, and the singles would later be put together into compilation albums.

I think that's where we're headed now. The Led Zeppelin-style concept album that strings together from beginning to end? I suspect that will be a thing of the past in ten years, along with recordable music media as a whole. The vehicle was the last bastion of the CD, and most new cars now have MP3 player jacks in them for you to plug your iPod into instead of jerking around with a CD player while you drive.

But with the rapidly-approaching switch to digital music, I fear, will come an end to the conventional album. iTunes buyers don't purchase the entire album. More often than not, they buy the two songs that are getting radio airplay, and don't listen to the rest. I'm sure there will still be bands out there releasing albums of ten songs or so for their hardcore fans, but I anticipate that most artists will opt to go the 1930's route instead, and rather than spend time and money on songs that won't be released to various forms of radio, they'll pump out digital singles. They may still record ten songs at a time, but I really doubt the ten songs will be released all at once, let alone in a "storybook album" style. In short, I think the days of "The Wall" have passed.

I believed pretty strongly that the onset of Tivo and Netflix meant the end to recordable video media as well. That was before Blu-Ray, though. I think the format has saved recordable film media for at least the next ten years or so, but ultimately, I expect it will suffer the same fate that CD's will.

...and music/movie shops will be forced to either offer new products to replace the discs that no one wants anymore, or they'll go by the wayside.

My two cents.

aion wrote:

The justification of the pirates is that stealing is OK just because it's easy with new technology, and that's why - strangely - the record companies should change their ways and improve, and not the ones who are actually breaking the law."

But this is exactly the problem, when people place criminal law over all else.  We as informed citizens have the right to question the law as the world evolves.  It used to be illegal for black people to swim in a pool where white people swam.  It used to be illegal for women to vote.  These things changed.  Today, it is illegal to choose not to fill the pockets of record company executives if you want to own music created by artists on major labels.  Should that never change too?

"Of course it's fine to release music for free. If those bands want to do it, that's great, and saves some of my money. But if they DON'T want to release it for free, we should respect that and pay for the music. It's up for the artists to decide."

Then you should never turn on the radio, tv, watch youtube, or watch a friend's DVD if that is your moral fabric.

"And the vast majority of musicians are not in the privileged position to release music for free (or don't want to release it for free even if they're already rich), but they want a paycheck for their work just like you want a paycheck for your work."

Right.  But as I outlined above, the record sales are not their paycheck - it is a very small part of their paycheck.  Concerts are their paycheck.  And plenty of people who go to the concerts to give the band their paycheck wouldn't be there if it weren't for downloading.

"It's funny because the artists on major labels tend to be richer than the ones on indie labels."

That's because the bigger labels have money to pump into marketing, and not after they tell the artist how their music should sound in order to have the "privilege" of it being marketed.

YourValentine wrote: A very interesting discussion, I realise I did not consider all aspects of the issue concerning artist independence of record companies, the role of myspace etc. Still, I think I am with aion. I cannot imagine that many artists, even if they are very rich, like it when their product is downloaded for free and people do not pay. In the "old days" we copied albums on audio cassettes and swapped these cassettes on the school yard, simply because nobody could afford to buy all the albums. But it was not sharing an album with 1000s of people, just with a few friends. Also, the price of the cassettes already included a fee that was distributed to the artists in proportion to their actual record sales. Maybe it would be a solution if CD-Rs and DVD-Rs and even hard drives were sold with such a fee and the music industry and the movie industry were given a certain percentage of these sales to make up for possible losses due to pirating. This would be much better than enable government agencies to censor website content.

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I usually agree with you Barb, but not this time. The "swapping tapes in the schoolyard" comparison is not accurate. Your argument is based on the premise of only swapping with one or two "friends" - but the overall effect is not "one or two". Practically every highschool and college was fully of "friends" swapping tapes. As much stuff got swapped - just on a slightly slower word of mouth basis rather than internet "wildfire". Added to this the comparison that if Jim took two tapes to school and swapped with Mary - that's in effect four full sales lost. With bittorrents (my understanding is) that "bits" are harvested from all sharing the item - so in effect you may have only "shared" 10% of an album.

Levying the purchase of hard drives, memory sticks, cdrs and dvdrs would not tackle anything - it would merely condone condone it. An attitude of "i already paid for whatever i want, so i will download everything i can" would prevail - this could in effect make things worse.

Finally, the govt took a move this year to ban radios in shared work spaces (in govt offices) where a licence has not been bought. Bit twisted i feel that a govt trying to reduce piracy is actually stopping people from hearing any new music duing 8 of the 18 hrs they are awake everyday. talk about nose and face.

I dont have time to get into this fully now, but having scanned through the thread, I have to say Im highly frustrated with the lack of respect for intellectual property on this site.
Using greedy record companies as justification for casually breaking the law is ridiculous. Theres never any justification for casually breaking the law. If the law is wrong, you change it via the democratic process before carrying out the previously forbidden act, you dont go around being all high and mighty and saying you're in the right, therefore you can do as you please - society itself could not function with such an attitude.

If you believe you should be able to get someone elses hard work for free you're simply a freeloader.

The "I pay loads to go to concerts, therefore I should be allowed to download the music for free" argument is just nonesense - thats like saying I pay loads to buy a house, therefore I should be allowed to steal bricks whenever I want, or get gravel for my drive for free.

There's nothing wrong with downloading music! There's my two cents!

Can someone please torrent "Lost Opportunity"?  I am too lazy to dig my Headlong CD single out my basement.

@ Brenski - you are right in a way. Copying music to cassettes was in nuce the same as downloading - only it was more work and as kids we did not believe that we have a right to own anything without paying. Whenever possible we bought the albums of our favourite bands, cassettes were only the second best thing. We also recorded a lot of radio music to tape machines for personal use because it was impossible to buy all the latest singles.We simply did not feel  that we were stealing and I think that many kids feel the same today when they download music: there is no visible damage for anybody, so why not download whenever possible.

In the early days of downloading it was crystal clear that downloading was illegal - remember the Metallica vs Napster case. Today many artists offer their music for free or start their carreers on myspace rather than EMI as Bob pointed out correctly, so the society must find a way to stop the theft of copyrighted music on the one hand and also to stop legislation from developing censorship tools that will hurt all citizens in the end. I do not know the answer but some sort of general payment or fee would maybe help all parties involved.

Raf wrote:

 >>If I steal a car or something from the supermarket, the original owner doesn't have it anymore. If a friend rips his favorite CD and send me the mp3 files, he's still got his CD. There was no loss involved... Just like there was no profit.

I think the fact that there was no loss makes it plain wrong to call music downloading "theft". >>

When you copy it, the effect is still the same: you get the product but the maker of the product doesn't get the money.

>>>>But this is exactly the problem, when people place criminal law over all else.  We as informed citizens have the right to question the law as the world evolves.  It used to be illegal for black people to swim in a pool where white people swam.  It used to be illegal for women to vote.  These things changed.  Today, it is illegal to choose not to fill the pockets of record company executives if you want to own music created by artists on major labels.  Should that never change too?>>>

Yeah, we could join the Swedish pirate party and try to abolish copyright laws for our own convenience. We would be acting against the artists though, motivated by our selfishness, and at least I would question the morality of the case where the creator of something doesn't have a say in how their invention/product/work of art is used/distributed/modified.

>>Then you should never turn on the radio, tv, watch youtube, or watch a friend's DVD if that is your moral fabric.>>

No, I don't have that kind of absurdly strict stance against hearing music for free. There are many ways to hear music for free or almost free and that's just fine... radio, TV, libraries, friends' music collections, Spotify etc. I have listened to radio, borrowed CDs from people and the library, used You Tube and so on. But the thing with downloading is that it makes it too easy and commonplace to grab stuff for free that they sell in the store. Back in the old days when you copied albums to cassette tapes or recorded something off the radio, then at the least you had to buy the cassette and sit there and manually do it, you had to have the album at hand and do it slowly one album at a time. But nowadays, with downloading, you press one button and go to sleep, and in the morning you'll have 5,000 songs on the computer. It would have taken years and years to copy that amount to cassettes, and this easiness means that it's actually hurting the industry. It's a whole new world compared to the old time, and if artists don't like this new situation then I don't think we should act against them if we have any respect for the people whose music we listen to and enjoy.

>>Right.  But as I outlined above, the record sales are not their paycheck - it is a very small part of their paycheck.  Concerts are their paycheck.  And plenty of people who go to the concerts to give the band their paycheck wouldn't be there if it weren't for downloading.>>

The album is part of the paycheck as long as the artist is on the label and wants it to be part of the paycheck. Paying for a concert ticket (just because it's harder to steal a ticket than an mp3) doesn't mean that you should grab the record and those people could/should/would have become fans because they saw the music video, their friend had the album or whatever other way there was before Bittorrent...

aion wrote: Raf wrote:

 >>If I steal a car or something from the supermarket, the original owner doesn't have it anymore. If a friend rips his favorite CD and send me the mp3 files, he's still got his CD. There was no loss involved... Just like there was no profit.

I think the fact that there was no loss makes it plain wrong to call music downloading "theft". >>

When you copy it, the effect is still the same: you get the product but the maker of the product doesn't get the money.

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No, it is NOT the same effect as stealing. 

Stealing: You have A Night At The Opera, I don't. I steal it from you. Now I have ANATO and you don't.

Copying: You have A Night At The Opera. I don't. I copy it from you. Now both of us have it. Nobody LOST anything.

Stealing : One copy of ANATO was sold. Copying :  One copy of ANATO was sold.

Copying when two (or more) people are highly motivated to own ANATO:  One copy is sold
Stealing when two (or more) people are highly motivated to own ANATO:  Two (or more) copies are sold