1 for the record companies

[GodOfRhythm]

Support your bands: GO SEE THEM LIVE.

Fuck the RIAA and the industry!!!

[skorb]

Support your bands: GO SEE THEM LIVE.

Fuck the RIAA and the industry!!!

+1

[markb]

Move to Canada. Downloading is legal here.

[442w30]

Move to Canada. Downloading is legal here.

but CD-r's have a tax to compensate

[442w30]

Support your bands: GO SEE THEM LIVE.

Fuck the RIAA and the industry!!!

+1

+10

[Newc]

Ok, but what about after-market/used CDs? If I sell a Metallica CD to Sully (not saying Sully would be caught dead with one, but y'know..), do I owe Lars Inc any money?

What about my local CD shop that sells used CDs? Do they have to pay a royalty? What if I sell my CDs to the local shop...I gotta pay a percentage to the label/artist?

How is trading/buying used CDs any different than downloading?

Don't get me wrong, as a musician I'd probably be upset if the stuff I was trying to sell was being passed out free, but I think I'd be going for the larger-money targets like second-hand sales.

And what about the discontinued/out of print stuff? Fans just have to wait till the label decides to reissue it? If that's the case, they should be required to re-release their entire catalog every 5 years until Doomsday.

I downloaded the Chester and Lester CDs - Chet Atkins and Les Paul - done in the late 70s. I looked online for a copy of it, but all I found were used copies for $50+. Since that money would not go to the artists, and there was no way to verify it was an unopened, N.O.S. disc, why should I chance buying a bootleg, or support a bootlegger?

By the same token, I downloaded a bunch of Mary Ford/Les Paul stuff, then bought a 6 Double-CD boxed set of all their albums. Did Les get that money? Probably not, because it was an older release. It wasn't used - all the CDs were shrink-wrapped in the "good stuff" - but if Les or the label didn't get any of that money, where would the problem have been if I downloaded it instead?

Those are the arguments that the courts need to seriously consider, and the labels need to address in a legitimate fashion.

[delt]

Well, the way i see it, economy goes to shit and everyone is pointing fingers blaming each other.

[VitaminG]

I tested that theory once. I took high-quality WAV files (44.1, Stereo, no compression, etc) and got 12 songs on one CD-R.

Next I took those same high-quality WAV files and converted them to high-quality MP3s. Smaller file size, near-CD-quality sound (44.1, Stereo, etc etc).

Could not get more songs on the CD-R.

Next I bumped them all down to absolute crap. We're talking RealAudio sound-quality. Overly compressed, tinny, mono, 22.5kHz, etc.

Could not get more on a CD-R.

how many times did you try that experiment? Did you have your results independently verified? If you only performed the test once, how can we depend on the veracity of your findings?

before I got my Ipod, I used to carry around a CD Walkman. It could also play mp3s. I could burn a disc of mp3s and play it in the Walkman. It allowed me to carry a lot more music because I could rip my entire CD collection to my pc, and then drop several albums on a single disc. Depending on the mp3 quality, I remember fitting up to 7 albums on a single CD-R. Very handy for carrying STG bootleg concerts with me, considering they were never available on a disc in the first place.

So I don't know what it was you were doing that was limiting the burning to 12 tracks per disc, regardless of file quality. User error?

[Thrust]

Prime example of why I don't buy CDs anymore.

[marcus]

So I don't know what it was you were doing that was limiting the burning to 12 tracks per disc, regardless of file quality.

This was probably caused by burning the CD as an "audio disc" as opposed to a "data disc". CD burning software usually asks you what kind of CD you want to burn at the start. If you choose "audio" or "music" or something like that, you are limited to 80 minutes. This choice will encode the CD for cd-audio. If you choose "data" or whatever your software may call it, you can burn up to 640 MB of mp3 files.

[Spivonious]

About the used sales, you paid for it in the initial purchase. When you resell it, you no longer have it, so there's still only one owner of the CD.

I don't know for sure, but I assume the used CD stores pay a general royalty fee to cover their sales. I do know that the MPAA charges movie rental places around $150 a copy to cover any lost sales.

[Spivonious]

This was probably caused by burning the CD as an "audio disc" as opposed to a "data disc". CD burning software usually asks you what kind of CD you want to burn at the start. If you choose "audio" or "music" or something like that, you are limited to 80 minutes. This choice will encode the CD for cd-audio. If you choose "data" or whatever your software may call it, you can burn up to 640 MB of mp3 files.

+1

My friend's car stereo can play discs with MP3s, and he can fit around 300 songs per disc.

[marcus]

About the used sales, you paid for it in the initial purchase. When you resell it, you no longer have it, so there's still only one owner of the CD.

I don't know for sure, but I assume the used CD stores pay a general royalty fee to cover their sales. I do know that the MPAA charges movie rental places around $150 a copy to cover any lost sales.

Music companies get nothing when a used CD is sold, and they hate it. There have been lawsuits over this and the record companies have always lost. This is due to the first-sale doctrine:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine

Apparently, in some states, now there are laws being enacted to make selling them a real pain in the ass:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070507-record-shops-used-cds-ihre-papieren-bitte.html

[fett]

You young pups, you. Way back when. 1970? I would go to fleamarket and buy bootleg 8-Track tapes. The FBI shut those people down.:ROTF:

[Chad]

The record companies are still trying to operate like it's 1985. I've personally told them my feelings on this (have connections to some degree). Awhile back I told them that to discourage downloading, they need to lower the prices of CDs drastically......$8 or $9 retail (with lower street prices) maximum. Move forward a few months and I know of one company that has announced large, across the board price cuts on most of their catalog, but still not enough reduction in my opinion to have much effect. They are shooting for $12.98/$13.98.

I still buy CDs for the better sound quality and artwork is nice as well. What I wish would happen is that somebody would sell CD quality, lossless, downloadable music online. I've found some questionable sites that do this, but is anybody aware of a site offering 100% lossless, legal downloads?

Regarding the gal that owes $220,000 in damages.....the phrase "try to get blood out of a turnip" comes to mind. Do they really think they're going to get the money out of the person? Legal folks....is it possible to garnish wages or something similar for this sort of thing? More than anything this just sets an example....but not sure what they're trying to accomplish. As witnessed in this thread it just makes most people want to resist the music companies even more.