|
|
Posted by Technomage Hawke on 09/21/05 14:19
this is an oldie, but a goodie...
************************************
Date: November 30, 2003 @ 9:12 PM
This is a true experience of a music fan using p2p that should be shoved
down the RIAA's throat.
As a long time fan of symphonic rock I literally spent years downloading,
wading through and tossing out garbage on MP3. The object of this quest was
to find at least one album by a recent band that was of comparable quality
to the best symphonic rock of the 70's.
Finally, after some three years of searching I turn up a lead on such an
album. (Malice Mizer's "Merveilles")It takes me two weeks to find
and download all the tracks, as well as to find all the information I
need to sow the tracks together in their proper order.
Then I listen. I like what I hear. I like it so much I burn it to a CD
so I can play it on my stereo or in my car. I like it so much that when
I eventually run across a pro-copy of this CD I plunk down $40 to buy
it, with glee.
And why not? This CD comes with a 20-page booklet with exquisite
photographic art on each page. It's an extremely collectible momento of
one of the most extraordinary bands of the 90's. One that I just missed
seeing before they broke up, thanks to the RIAA's blackout on any kind
of artistic music or truly charismatic bands. What could I possibly
download that would equal the collectible value of the real CD?
So I take the CD home, and don't play it for a while, figuring there's
nothing on it I haven't heard already. Then one day I get it out and
pump it through the big speakers. I put the controls at the same
setting I had used for the burned MP3 disc and the thing practically
blows me through the wall.
"There's so much sound," I exclaim. "Where did all this sound come
from. I never heard this in the MP3's."
So I go back to check the MP3's and sure enough, there are whole ranges
of the audio spectrum the MP3 didn't capture. Nor did it capture the
full stereo separation. There were instruments on some tracks that
couldn't even be heard.
Why do so few people notice this? 2 reasons. One, most people don't
listen to MP3's on good hi-fi equipment. Most people listen to MP3's on
computer speakers and small portable players that aren't expected to
put out the full range of sound you can hear on a CD. And two, most of
the music people listen to today is not dynamic enough to even require
hi-fi.
So now I apply this discovery to 2 basic flaws in the RIAA's thinking.
First, not one of those thousands of downloads I wasted could possibly
have represented any kind of loss to the RIAA. It was all garbage. I
would never have bought any of it. And when I finally did find an album
I liked, I not only bought it, but paid twice the RIAA price, being as
it was only available from Japan. Which brings up another point for the
RIAA to choke on. They didn't get one cent of that money.
Next let's look at this insane notion that anyone with any sense would
ever pay for an MP3. The above experience proved that MP3's aren't even
on a par with cassettes. The audio ranges that an MP3 can't seem to
capture represent very similar limitations on vinyl.
Basically, for me and thousands of others with similar experiences,
downloading MP3's has been no different than tuning across the radio
dial trying to find something we like. And when we've found things we
like, the MP3 was never satisfying enough to prevent us from buying the
album. Thus these millions of lost sales calculated by the amount of
traffic on p2p are nothing more than a myth. They are the product of
some music executive's paranoid brain.
Yet, because of the paranoia of the RIAA we are expected to loose our
valued ability to freely share and promote music to one another, and be
satisfied with pay sites as compensation.
Now, let's just look at what you get and don't get with a pay site. The
price of each track is 99 cents. For a CD with 18 tracks you are paying
the exact same price they've been gauging us for all this time. But are
you getting an equivalent product? NO! You're getting the same limited
quality sound we used to pay $6 for back in the 70's. But are you even
getting as much value as we got for our $6 way back then? HELL NO!!
What you are getting is a vinyl quality sound bite that can't even
leave your computer. Most people wouldn't even be able to play it on
their hi-fi system because pay MP3's are protected from being
transferred. You can't play it on any hi-fi, boom box or portable MP3
player you own. Uh, unless of course you want to pay even more money
for the special player that works with that site. And God knows how
much that will cost.
This next part is directed at the musicians. Roger Waters, are you
listening? Let's say that 18-track album our figurative future pay site
user just purchased is Roger Waters' "Amused To Death." What's going to
happen where the tracks sinew? You got it, major breaks in the music
where there shouldn't be any.
Ok, after 12 listens our frustrated pay site user is just about ready
to accept this major hindrance to his enjoyment of the album when the
absolute final insult to end all insults kicks in. A little window pops
up that says, "You have reached the limit of 12 plays for this album.
The MP3's will no longer work. If you wish to hear this album again you
must go back to the pay site and pay another $18 to download the tracks
again."
See, the RIAA has not only figured out how to get you to pay for
nothing, they've figured out a way to make you pay twice. Maybe even an
infinite number of times if you really like the album and would like to
go on listening to it for the rest of your life. Imagine over the
course of your lifetime paying $100 or more for one album. Do they
really think anybody is that stupid?
Of course this is not really an RIAA worry. The RIAA has taken steps to
ensure there will never again be any of those troublesome albums like
"Tubular Bells" or "Dark Side Of The Moon." Imagine the arrogance of
Mike Oldfield and Pink Floyd, making albums that can't be cut up into
five-minute chunks or pigeon holed into specific categories. Sure they
have consistently been on and off the album chart for the last 30 years
and made us a ton of money, but we can not have these non-conformists
making this classic music anymore. We must have prefabricated
disposable music that will only be of value one year and then thrown
away. That way people will not want to download albums multiple times.
We must make music they'll be sick to death of by the 12th play.
Well, our poor duped pay site user is sick to death over the fact that
"Amused To Death" has left his hard drive. But there's no way he's
going to pay another $18 to get it back. Nor is he going to waste his
money on the latest over hyped pop hits, which he hates in spite of all
the ads that keep popping up telling him he's a looser for not liking
them.
So he remembers an old album he hasn't heard in 30 years. Let's say
it's Rick Wakeman's "No Earthly Connection." He goes to the search
engine to look for it. And guess what, it's not there. Why? It's out of
print, of course. Why is this album out of print? Because A&M owns the
copyrights. And even though they no longer want to publish the album,
they won't release the copyrights to the composer so he can release it
on his own label.
Realizing he can't get anything on the pay site that isn't currently in
print, our pay site user remembers, "Damn, used to be I could get all
kinds of out of print stuff on WinMX. I could just download it and
enjoy it. What was the harm in that if nobody was selling the album
anyway? I sure wish I could go back in time to when the Internet was
free, before those commie bastard RIAA people took over everything. Oh
well, the hell with this. Think I'll just turn the damn computer off
and read a book. At least the law they drew up to stop me from doing
that hasn't been passed yet."
There's more to read on this at:
http://www.boycott-riaa.com/forums/fsharing/1543
--
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or
numbered!
My life is my own - No. 6
Navigation:
[Reply to this message]
|