music file sharing

[Sammy Baugh Fan]

"All of which require profiting from said infringements to justify any punishment. "

Wrong.

"No reproducing or distributing this material without expressed written permission of the artist under penalty of law".
Or something like that.

There are ways for artists to make the money but from "File Sharing".

peace

[TheMalcolmConnection]

I didn't mean to cause such controversy, but basically here's the deal. As far as the starving musical artists are concerned, I know that I personally do everything in my power to support them. However, when someone downloads a copyrighted work, it IS stealing but most people tend to turn a blind eye to that fact or justify it by saying the artist's make enough money as that is.

For me anyway, it's a two-wrongs-not-making-a-right kind of situation. It's a gross injustice that people who sing bullshit bubblegum pop like Britney Spears live lives of luxury while the underground/starving artists with talent flowing through every vein are kept down because they don't have the image, don't have the connections, etc. For me, when someone downloads one of Britney Spears' songs, for one they are getting punished enough to by having to listen to that bullshit and two, I feel that that is a small way of making Britney's figurative stock plummet just a touch.

Is it right? Nope.
Is it legal? Not at all.
Does Britney deserve the money she gets paid? Hell no.

Granted, I'm sure many people would love to say,"Aren't garbage men underpaid?" or "Aren't pro-sports players overpaid?" I'm going to say that this whole post is in reference ONLY to musicians.

On the rare occassion I DO somehow end up with a "Top 40" song on my computer, I DO know that it is wrong, I don't deny that fact, however I am one (of the many) who feel that people who have dropped out of college or just have the look don't deserve the money that people are willing to drop on a album they didn't write or have much of any part in. When I see the people behind the scenes making the big bucks that the producers/executives/singers do, I'll understand that I'm hurting the little guy.

Again, I just feel like the system of "Billboard" style music is completely screwed when a company can go out and find people with "the look" and market the hell out of them into platinum-selling artists. Now THAT is an injustice and SHOULD be illegal.

[SKINSnCANES]

garbage men make a pretty good salary, enough to afford to buy the cd thats for sure, lol.

Artists make almost all of their money by touring. They make very little on record sales. So really youre mainly screwing over the record label. Which doesnt sound quite as bad, because its a company, and not an individual like miss britney spears. heh

[Daseal]

Guys - there's a reason the RIAA lost a class-action lawsuit for purposely making a band save songs and put them on the next CD so there would be 1-2 hits on each CD. When the RIAA starts putting out good CDs, I'll start respecting them. By downloading music, you are hardly hurting the artists at all. They get their money from shows and merchandise like skinsncanes said.

The RIAA took the wrong approach to, especially teenagers, at getting them to stop downloading music. Don't threaten them. They'll keep doing it, and you know that. I have found, and bought more CDs, because of internet file sharing than not. I do end up with big name artists on my computer from time to time, and I feel no remorse at all. Is it stealing? Damn right! Don't act like the artists freak out about music being downloaded, they don't care because they get fractions of cents off the dollar.

Also - It's not the P2P networks fault. I've gotten a lot of great, and uncopywrited material off P2P networks. The music industry is still popular, and every single one of you know that there's nothing that can replace seeing an artist live. Internet music is unreliable and often the quality isn't as good. I still buy CDs to this day, but a lot of them I put on my computer so I can just make CDs that have 17 songs I like instead of 2 I like and 12 I don't.

[TheMalcolmConnection]

Exactly what I was trying to say with my rambling point... thanks for clearing that up fellas.

[FRPLG]

Originally Posted by Sammy Baugh Fan

"All of which require profiting from said infringements to justify any punishment. "

Wrong.

"No reproducing or distributing this material without expressed written permission of the artist under penalty of law".
Or something like that.

There are ways for artists to make the money but from "File Sharing".

peace

Actually I wasn't making a legal argument more or a pragmatic point that it is ridiculous to punish someone for sharing something they bought when they are not profiting at the detriment to the producer. We're talking a whole different ball game when someone is reproducing a product and selling it rather than when they reproduce it and share it with friends. I think most would agree with that.

[MTK]

Originally Posted by FRPLG

Actually I wasn't making a legal argument more or a pragmatic point that it is ridiculous to punish someone for sharing something they bought when they are not profiting at the detriment to the producer. We're talking a whole different ball game when someone is reproducing a product and selling it rather than when they reproduce it and share it with friends. I think most would agree with that.

I agree there's distinct differences between reproducing a recording and selling it in mass quantities and someone burning a copy of a CD for a friend.

After all why are blank CD-Rs such big business, you can't tell me people are using these for data only.

[BDBohnzie]

not trying to ascertain to one side or the other, but there was a big to do when cassettes first came out, and people were taping songs off the radio. the RIAA tried to stop this and were unsucessful...

if i have a CD, and my buddy wants to make a copy, so be it. i have paid for the CD, and am not profitting on its distribution. my buddy may like it so much that he either goes out and buys it, or buys other distributions down the road, which profits the music industry and the artists in the long run...and that is a valid argument.

downloading copyrighted material is wrong (however, i have a problem with this...if you were and are able to tape songs off the radio, isn't this the same concept?), but people will continue to do so. if you choose to do so, you do so knowing the consequences if you get caught. if you do not, that is your prerogative...

and not to discredit your argument SBF, because it is a very valid one, but when you purchase a CD for anywhere from 5 bucks to 20 bucks, 100% of the funds do not go directly to the artist. they get a very small percentage, hence why a good number of artists support file sharing, legal or otherwise. for the most part, i will buy CDs direct, either at show, or off a band's website...knowing that they get a bigger cut of the monies. however, i do understand that any download will take money out of an artist's pocket...nowadays, i download music that is readily available on an artist's website...

this is why i also support Open Source software. it gives the average programmer the ability to take an idea and make it his/her own, as long as they continue to make it open source. in college, i pirated software left and right...i was poor and needed the use of the software that I could not afford otherwise. now, you can find very affordable or free equivalents of a lot of Microsoft, Adobe, Macromedia, etc products online...including whole operating systems.

[MTK]

This will probably start a whole different debate but have you guys checked out www.allofmp3.com

Great site for music, and yes you pay for it. Not much, but it's due to the site being located in Russia and the conversion rate makes the CD's very cheap.