Filesharing - Give us a chance!

[Spivonious]

Well, i`m with TheTroy on this one, i`ve downloaded thousands of songs/films/programs etc over various fileshare media, torrents, ftp, nntp etc. Is it illegal, immoral and wrong, probably, do i give a shit, not really.

You've obviously never created something.

I buy what i like but only after downloading and listening first. Copyright breaches have been with us forever, and will continue to be so in the future, doesn`t make it right, but there it is.

If everyone jumped of a cliff, would you?

Keeping recorded tv shows longer than the legally specified time, lending cd`s and books to friends are all copyright breaches.

Actually, none of those things are breaches. The law allows for time-shifting TV shows, and when you lend a CD or book to a friend, there is still only one copy of that CD or book.

Shit, some even have disclaimers that your not allowed to sell copyright material you`ve already purchased yourself, wtf is that all about.

Okay, so you think it's okay if I bought a Jackson and then made exact copies of it, complete with Jackson logo, and sold them to others that's okay?

We always hear how piracy is killing the music industry, bullshit, its thriving. The record companies are making bigger and bigger profits each year so how is it being harmed?

Show me some figures here. All I've heard is that the record companies are bleeding money and their revenue is on the decline.

Greed is what its all about, both from the record companies and their fat cat profits, and people like myself and troy. Yer, we`re just as greedy as the record companies but they still make their money and some.

This is called capitalism. I make something, I sell it, I make money. Would you prefer communism?

IMO, theres only one way to fight piracy, make the material so cheap that its just not worth ripping it. Companies blame the price of material on piracy, and say `it has to be this expensive to cover the cost of all you thieving fuckers that download it for free` Bullshit say i. If they made the cost of each program/film/album £1 who`d bother downloading it? we`d all have originals and they`d sell billions of copies easily making massive profits.

You can download a song for $1. I think that's more than reasonable. If you think $1/song is too high, then you have other problems.

If we all stopped pirating today would prices come down, of course not, they`d still keep going up and the record companies would find another excuse to justify their prices, the price of beer/drugs for the artist going up etc. Will they ever bring prices down? not gonna happen is it lol. Not trying to justify what i do, i do it, i`m happy doing it and feel no guilt doing it.

I haven't seen a CD price go up in at least 10 years. They've always been $10-$20. You should take an economics course and learn about supply and demand.

Will i continue doing it? sure i will. If i get kicked off the net then fine, theres other ways and means. I re-iterate, i buy what i like, if its good and worth the money then i don`t mind shelling out, have easily over a thousand original recordings so its not lilke i WON`T stump up the cash, i just don`t feel OBLIGED to do so. Big up to Troy for his posts, and to Bengal for putting some excellent arguments across.

Music is a luxury item. If I can't afford to buy a CD, I save up some money, I don't go to the CD store and start making copies. Hey, the store hasn't lost any sales, right?

[horns666]

Interesting side bit: Hot Topic is owned by Gap.

Sweet Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers..I did not know that!

[yard dawg]

Anyone who thinks the labels are doing well is nuts. CD sales are down. Itunes is doing well but the average artist gets .8 cents per song downloaded. If they wrote the song they get more. A cd that goes gold usually has just hit the recoup stage. Thats where the cost of making the cd and getting it out is recouped by the labels with a little profit. A gold selling artist can go on the road though and make as much as $10000 a night. SOme even get more. Thats not bad for the artist. A multiplatinum selling artist makes money off the cd sales but can get as much as $250,000 a show. Now multiply that figure by 20 shows and you get a pretty nice pay day.

Most artists dont care about cd sales because of the tour moneys. Thats why I said not to worry about cd sales as much as getting your name out. You can make money playing music but you have to be good. I met a session guy once who earned $60,000 a yr in AZ. Its possible to make a living but you cant suck!

Oh yea to the delusional man who said he heard home studio stuff sound just as well as a professional cd you are nuts. Most pro cds are tracked thru a million dollar SSL 9000J . No protools rig I have ever worked on can sound as well as a SSL 2 bus compresser. They can have a plug in but its not the same. Pro studios use gear like Genelec,API,Universal audio,Neve,Neuman mics,AKG414 mics,Pultec EQs etc. You cant get as good a mix in a home studio unless you have high end gear and the room has been tuned by an acoustic engineer. That process aint cheap.

You cant get good tracks to tape with home studio gear. These pros use very expensive mic pres and mics in a tuned room designed for tracking. There is NO WAY you can get a quality mastered cd from a protools rig. The pro cds are mastered by guys who have been trained and have expert ears in a perfectly tuned room with 10s of thousands of dollars in gear. Id love to see a home studio miz come even close to Chris Lord Alges mixes or Chuck Ainleys or Bob Bullocks. Justin Niebank is a grammy award winning engineer. Id love to see someone come even close to the quality he gets in a professional mixing studio thru there piddly home rig. Its not gonna happen.

Just because you have Peak or Wavelab doesnt mean your a mastering engineer. Just because you have Pro Tools and an Mbox or some other DAW doesnt make you a mixing engineer. Most pro guys have been thru schooling and have many years of mixing experience. There is a reason they get as much as $300 hr to mix. Chris Lord Alge gets $15000 a song for major label stuff.

[Bengal]

wibble,
Big ups to you too for taking the other side. Regardless of what some have said, I appreciate anyone who takes the other road and had the balls to stand up and say it here in this thread.

I don't know about record companies and profits. Seems like they are doing OK to me, but I really have no numbers.

I always wonder though, and I'm not calling out wibble or thetroy or Zeegs with this statement, but I've always wondered of those that say, "I will buy what I like after I download it and hear it first. What I don't like, I won't buy". I've always wondered about this. It's a good way to justify it but I wonder if it's really true. But I'll take everyone here at face value.

Hot Topic owned by GAP? Yep, that seems to make sense.

[Bengal]

And as for the downloaded files being lesser quality than a CD. I buy that. That makes sense to me.

Not being a downloader I have no way to prove that but it makes sense.

[yard dawg]

Im not for stealing music BUT this little bit of info is something Lars and the RIAA dont want you to know. The highest cd sales have ever been was during the Napster time.

[SEEGERMANY]

Actually Scott, it was intended as a broad statement and not to be taken too damned seriously. Hey, if you have an employer who doesn't care that you surf, it's no sweat off my nuts. It ain't coming out of my payroll!

[Bengal]

This "surfing the net at work is stealing" business has got me thinking.

Know what's funny? There is a girl at my work who is not a big net surfer so she brings a book to read when we have down time.

That bothers my boss more than surfing the net. Why? Because if they are looking at a computer screen it gives the appearance that she is "working". If she is reading a book it gives the appearance that she is not working.

Make sense? Maybe and maybe not. I see where he is coming from. But I guess some would call reading while on the clock stealing as well.

But that's where I bring in bathroom trips. Is that stealing? Is heating up a bag of popcorn stealing? I'm not working. Is talking to the sports guys about Wimbeldon stealing? I'm not doing anything for work. Is talking to another co-worker about his recent wedding stealing? I'm not working when I do that.

It all depends on what you do. If you work in a plastics injection mold plant, there is no time to do anything but work. You work the whole 8 hours you are there.

Other jobs are like mine. Downtime until something happens and you have work to do.

All I know is I went to college to have the latter job and get away from the former. It's what college is for.

[Bengal]

Actually Scott, it was intended as a broad statement and not to be taken too damned seriously. Hey, if you have an employer who doesn't care that you surf, it's no sweat off my nuts. It ain't coming out of my payroll!

HA! Good point.

Some jobs have benifits that reach beyond insurance.

[wibble]

You've obviously never created something.
If everyone jumped of a cliff, would you?
Actually, none of those things are breaches. The law allows for time-shifting TV shows, and when you lend a CD or book to a friend, there is still only one copy of that CD or book.
Okay, so you think it's okay if I bought a Jackson and then made exact copies of it, complete with Jackson logo, and sold them to others that's okay?
Show me some figures here. All I've heard is that the record companies are bleeding money and their revenue is on the decline.
This is called capitalism. I make something, I sell it, I make money. Would you prefer communism?
You can download a song for $1. I think that's more than reasonable. If you think $1/song is too high, then you have other problems.
I haven't seen a CD price go up in at least 10 years. They've always been $10-$20. You should take an economics course and learn about supply and demand.
Music is a luxury item. If I can't afford to buy a CD, I save up some money, I don't go to the CD store and start making copies. Hey, the store hasn't lost any sales, right?

Ok, can`t get to grip with these multi edit things, so i`ll reply to each point in turn.

I have created things, but i`m not sure of your point. If your saying, how would i like it as the creator if someone copied what i`d created, then tbh i`d be stoked. I`d be flattered someone somewhere liked it enough to deem it worth copying. Granted i`m not making my living from it, but it seems from the survey results posted earlier, that most musicians don`t actually mind file sharing as they see it as positive publicity.

Jumping off a cliff, i don`t file share because others do it, i do it because it works for me no other reason. My point was more that, copyright breaches of one kind or another have been happening for years, and will continue to do so in the future, and hey, the companies still make damn good profits and the worlds not ended.

Regarding the next point. Actually, these are breaches, here in the UK (and i`m sure in the US too) your only legally allowed to retain a copy of a recording for a set period of time, 3 months i beleive, tho i`m sure someone will come along and correct me. After that time, your committing a copyright offense (although to the best of my knowledge, no ones been prosecuted for this) Regarding lending of books/cd`s the copyright usually states, they must not be lent or hired to others. Some say may not re-sell, presumably because the publisher gains no profit, and technically loses a sale.

The next point you`ve misinterpreted me, i`m not suggesting that making copies of something and selling it is ok, i`m saying i should be able to sell what i bought, and not be constrained by a copyright agreement that says i cannot. No copies at all, just the original. To use your example, its like Jackson saying ok, the guitar you just bought your not allowed to sell, because your depriving us of a sale.

Figures, see http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20040903-4156.html usually the same every year, bleeding hearts for 11 months, then the last month patting themselves on the back saying how well they`ve done.

Capitalism i have no problems with at all All i`m saying is the reason i pirate is greed, and the reason the publishers want to cutout piracy is greed. Nothing wrong with it, but thats what it is.

$1 songs, my point was the FULL cd should be $1 or film, program whatever. $1 per song is still potentially $16 for a full cd. Far too much imo and the reason alot pirate.

Prices, we`ve had price rises here in the UK, time was a vinyl album cost you £7, then cd`s came along and where £10. Now cd prices are nearer to £17 at some places, inflation? could well be, tho the publishers blame piracy for price rises not inflation.

Fully agree, music is a luxury, and one we can live without, but i`m not gonna buy something unheard, plain and simple. If i like it, i`ll pony up the cash, if not, well the money is better off in my pocket rather than thiers, especially in todays economic climate with price rises everywhere. The publishers actually get more sales from me downloading not less, they should be grateful lol

Just as a footnote, when i refer to piracy, i`m not referring to copying and selling as originals thereby doing the publishers out of money, but as downloading files for my family and my own personal enjoyment. People that sell copies as originals i`ve no time for. (pot calling the kettle black? just possibly as the end result is probably the same.)

[khabibissell]

Oh yea to the delusional man who said he heard home studio stuff sound just as well as a professional cd you are nuts. Most pro cds are tracked thru a million dollar SSL 9000J . No protools rig I have ever worked on can sound as well as a SSL 2 bus compresser. They can have a plug in but its not the same. Pro studios use gear like Genelec,API,Universal audio,Neve,Neuman mics,AKG414 mics,Pultec EQs etc. You cant get as good a mix in a home studio unless you have high end gear and the room has been tuned by an acoustic engineer. That process aint cheap.

You cant get good tracks to tape with home studio gear. These pros use very expensive mic pres and mics in a tuned room designed for tracking. There is NO WAY you can get a quality mastered cd from a protools rig. The pro cds are mastered by guys who have been trained and have expert ears in a perfectly tuned room with 10s of thousands of dollars in gear. Id love to see a home studio miz come even close to Chris Lord Alges mixes or Chuck Ainleys or Bob Bullocks. Justin Niebank is a grammy award winning engineer. Id love to see someone come even close to the quality he gets in a professional mixing studio thru there piddly home rig. Its not gonna happen.

Just because you have Peak or Wavelab doesnt mean your a mastering engineer. Just because you have Pro Tools and an Mbox or some other DAW doesnt make you a mixing engineer. Most pro guys have been thru schooling and have many years of mixing experience. There is a reason they get as much as $300 hr to mix. Chris Lord Alge gets $15000 a song for major label stuff.

If you are talking about the overprocessed crap you hear now then you have a point, but you are using the best equipment and professionals in your example. Most bands don't have the resources to get that level of perfectionism (if you want to call it that), especially newer or less popular bands. So that argument is without merit. You can definitely get good (lets call it "professional") results with less expensive (lets call it home studio) level gear. Will the recording win Grammys for its production value? Probably not, but if its a metal/hard rock recording that it won't matter anyway.

[Bengal]

All i`m saying is the reason i pirate is greed

Fuckin' A! Finally someone told the truth. The real reason they download stuff. Greed.

I can understand that wibble. I was just waiting to see if I heard it.

It's just pure greed. I want shit too so I know exactly what that's about. We go about it different but that's just the difference between you and me. Like I've stated, I'm cool with people doing whatever they do, just be honest about it.

Here in the US we can sell whatever we have. No copyright infringement there. Used guitars, books, DVD's, CD's.

Sounds like it's different in the UK.

[khabibissell]

And as for the downloaded files being lesser quality than a CD. I buy that. That makes sense to me.

Not being a downloader I have no way to prove that but it makes sense.

That's right... Bengal here is the most righteous guy on the board. He never does or has done anything even remotely illegal. You have been being pretty vague about your occupation, but I think I have it figured out... you're Jesus!

[wibble]

Here in the US we can sell whatever we have. No copyright infringement there. Used guitars, books, DVD's, CD's.

Sounds like it's different in the UK.

Only applies to some books, cd`s, dvd`s etc not all. Need to carefully read the copyright warnings as not all are the same (does that make me a nerd lol?) As far as i know, its only on intellectual property (easily copiable material) that fall under copyright as opposed to instruments etc that`d be covered by patents.

[Bengal]

That's right... Bengal here is the most righteous guy on the board. He never does or has done anything even remotely illegal. You have been being pretty vague about your occupation, but I think I have it figured out... you're Jesus!

Messing with me again?

I told all of you I had limewire for 2 days. 45 songs later and I dumped the whole thing.

But sure I do illegal stuff. I think I jaywalked when I walked to work yesterday. I think, I don't really remember.

So see? I'm not a saint. But if something I have said makes you feel bad about yourself and you then strike out against me, that's cool. Maybe see someone about it though.

Vague about my occupation? Not really, some here know exactly what I do. What to know? Ask.