Posted by trippy on 09/12/06 07:21

In article <UbWdnWMBE6sQ0ZjYnZ2dnUVZ_vKdnZ2d@giganews.com>, Aaron took
the hamburger meat, threw it on the grill, and I said "Oh Wow"...

> trippy wrote:
> > In article <X7CdnUp-tPbLkp3YnZ2dnUVZ_vGdnZ2d@giganews.com>, Aaron took
> > the hamburger meat, threw it on the grill, and I said "Oh Wow"...
> >
> >> Modemac wrote:
> >> >>From our friends at Boing Boing:
> >> >
> >> > http://www.boingboing.net/2006/08/22/riaa_propaganda_movi.html
> >> >
> >> > You can download a free propaganda film about how downloading
> >> > copyrighted movies makes you an EVIL TERRORIST WHO WILL BE
> TRACKED DOWN
> >> > AND CAPTURED BY THE GLORIOUS SOLDIERS OF THE GOVERNMENT! What's
> more,
> >> > you can order a high-quality copy of the film on DVD, for free!
> >> >
> >> > --
> >> > The High Weirdness Project
> >> > http://www.modemac.com
> >>
> >> I love that trailer they're putting at the beginning of some DVDs now
> >> with the kids downloading movies on their computer and there is some
> >> song in the background and it flashes "YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A CAR," blah
> >> blah blah, "DON'T STEAL MOVIES."
> >>
> >> That rationalization is so played out. Okay, I'm not saying that people
> >> SHOULD steal music or movies, but it's just not the same THING, people!
> >
> > Sure it is. You *are* taking royalties away from the artists. By
> > downloading a song and not paying for it, you are depriving artists of
> > their due share of the money for a song. Their work, their
>
> Granted.
>
> The point I was trying to make was merely that the metaphor is NOT THAT
> SIMPLE. You can't say that by taking the song from someone you are
> depriving them of it.

Not the song itself, their share of the money for that song. Nobody's
trying to pawn it off as their own. That said I get what you're
saying. But okay, dig this. You're about to release your album. Pre-
release buzz says it's all that *and* the bag of chips. 2 days before
you release the album, someone leaks some of the tracks. Because they
ship them to the place before they actually sell the discs. Now your
revenue's slashed by who knows how much because the cool songs you'd
buy the album for are being downloaded via the net. But even if that
doesn't happen you can still get hosed because the disc is going to be
released eventually. Once a person buys the album, he has the ability
to post the tracks online. That's not good if it happens on say
wednesday and people were planning to buy the album on Friday.

Pepsi had one of the most brilliant campaigns a couple of summers
back. Remember when the RIAA was suing the crap out of people a couple
for downloading and got all that negative press? Pepsi completely
capitalized on it by buying downloads and giving them away with the
purchase of pepsi products. The only snag was they were iTunes
downloads. Fine if you like using iTunes, not everyone does. Also,
iTunes doesn't really let you save songs. It's stored on their thing,
not like a normal mp3 which you can save anywhere you want. This means
if you lose your songs, you're fucked.

> It's much more abstract than that, and yes, it's
> detrimental to the artists and labels that (presumably) you should be
> supporting. I say presumably because there is a chance that if they'd
> bought the actual album, they would have returned it.

Well, I have to give you that. Unless there's a recall or something
there's no mass returns on albums. People who buy it, keep it.

> People who
> download illegal music are much more likely to be experimenting because
> it's free.

Free's a pretty powerful incentive. Some people will be turned off and
never download again. That's a pretty small minority, imo. Let's face
it, who stops at one song? Nobody.

>
> Also, let us not forget that in most cases you are ripping off the
> record label a lot more fiercely than the artist, as the artist receives
> only the smallest portion of record sales. If you really support an
> artist, you would do better to attend their concerts and buy their
> merchandise, for which they receive a larger cut.

But Ticketmaster takes the lion's share there too. Unless you're so
huge that you can make the companies give that to you, you're not
making anywhere near something, fair, for lack of a better word.
Granted the concert circuit's very lucrative, especially with
ticketmaster prices, so the artist does get more but only because of
the numbers involved. Percentage wise, compared to the promoters, I
bet it's still dick.

>
> > artistic/intellectual property, their money. And filesharing makes it
> > all the more easier. Download enough songs and you don't have to buy
>
> "All the more easier?" That's like a double adjective, you can't do
> that.

All the more easy? Still too wordy but at least it tries to be more
gramatically correct. Just ignore that the rest of the sentence is
atrocious and work with me. Thanks.

>
> > their album and there's millions of people on the internet. If
> > everyone was to download the album for free, what do you think the
> > artists would make? Zilch. Why buy something when you can get it for
> > free?
>
> That's exactly it. Why do today what you can put off till tomorrow? Why
> buy what you can steal?
>

Can't beat free.

> > But I too download songs from the net, for free, using my favorite
> > filesharing proggie for three reasons.
> >
> > 1) The schemes to provide content to people legally are ridiculous,
> > for the most part. I use the Yahoo Launchcast service for free. It's
> > okay except that part of the subscription benefits is unlimited song
> > skipping. So, once the free skips run out, it's all crap that you
> > really, really wish you could skip through.
> >
> > They play 800 kazillion ads an hour. Pay a small subscription rate and
> > no ads. However, the ads play way more frequently than on commerical
> > radio. That's wrong. At least cut it down to that much, if you're
> > going to do something like that.
>
> Nearly all of the legal, digital music distribution channels right now
> suck, and it's for a simple reason: the music industry is a huge
> conglomeration of fantastically wealthy companies who can't dream of
> giving up control. Control over the playability of the tracks, control
> over the platforms they can be played on and by whom they can be played.
>
> We won't have high-quality, digital music distribution systems until
> they realize that THEY'VE ALREADY LOST CONTROL. Right now I can download
> an mp3 file from an illegal service and ANYONE can play it, or burn it,
> or edit it. And guess what? The same is true for a CD I bought.

Yep.

>
> The people just want the same amount of flexibility as they've always
> had, and they want to be TRUSTED with it. Record labels treat people
> like criminals even before they've done anything illegal. We hate that.

Yeah, the heavy handed Darth RIAA tactics don't exactly endear them to
the public. Nor does installing rootkits on people's computers. That's
evil and fucking ridiculous.

And I don't want to sound like I'm "RIAA YAY!" I'm not. I just think
that we should call it what it is. It's copyright infringement. We're
damaging the RIAA's profits. These companies *do* have the right to
earn a profit and that profit derives from mass sales of a particular
product. Even if you distribute that product for free, without
compensating them, you're unduly depriving them of the rewards of
whatever efforts they've made to provide the product. It doesn't
matter if it's music, hammers, or whatever. It's wrong.

But *you* aren't mass downloading, neither is anyone else. That may be
but it doesn't matter. The distribution is just too easy now. Before
with videocassettes and tapes, you had to record it on to a medium.
That meant you had to buy blank tapes. You had to physically record it
and transport it. You don't even need to do that now. You can get a
song as a file on your computer and send it with a click of a button.
Ok, a few clicks but still... Yeah, there was piracy before the
internet. But it was a lot more inconvienent. That's gone. You don't
need a disc or a tape to hear a song whenever you want anymore. You
don't need a disc or a tape to distribute one either. And there's a
lot of people on the internet. A LOT of people that download almost-
legal music. Even a few songs per person, shared among your friends
can be damaging if everyone else is doing it too. And almost everybody
is doing it. Let's not lie about that. That's mass distribution for
which the companies and the artist receive ZERO compensation. It would
be like if Wal-Mart decided to carry every album and say "Welp, screw
you, you're not getting royalties." Even if they gave the albums away,
they'd still get hosed. Until they worked out the deal to save their
ass anyway.

There's lots of Wal-Marts, there's even more clients on a p2p network.

The reason why Napster and Kazaa and soon to be Limewire are getting
shut down is because the RIAA has a case and it's been ordered by a
court of law. The reason why they don't go to jail is because the
civil penalties alone are enough to immediately destroy them and they
cave like that. They're the RIAA's bitch at that point, so they give
in and shut it down.

>
> > Part of the deal they've worked out in order to provide this service
> > is that they can't play only the songs you rate. This too means a lot
> > of crap you wish you could skip through. Although, I will be honest
> > and say that I have found songs to add due to this. Also, they play
> > stuff that's just coming out too so you can look superleet by blending
> > old/new sounds. Still, if you're going to have people rate songs, let
> > them hear them. Work out a better deal so that you don't have wade
> > through as much crap to hear the songs you pick.
>
> Try pandora. It's free. www.pandora.com.

I didn't like it at all. YMMV. I will admit, I did air out on the
Launchcast but it's been the most reliable and best service yet.
Pandora didn't play any song I put in the search box. Oh wait, one.
They worked out an even shittier deal than Yahoo did, imo anyway.

> There are limited skips without
> a subscription, but there are NEVER audio ads, and you can always rate
> something thumbs down to hear the next track, which DOES affect the
> music played, but hey, if you hated it, you probably don't want to hear
> more like it.

I wouldn't mind the ads so much if there weren't so many. I expected
some kind of advertising, I just didn't expect how much they actually
want to play. They should lower it.

>
> > 2) Sometimes I just want to hear a song and not have the whole radio
> > experience.
> >
> > 3) I've tried to find some of my favorite songs legally and they don't
> > even make the discs anymore. Also, the music that is produced legally
> > is priced sky high.
>
> The price is another reason why iTunes Music Store is doing so well. The
> days of $20 albums on CD are over. People who pay those rates are the
> stragglers.

And chumps who need to quit shopping at the mall.

>
> > 4) I haven't heard of an artist going broke yet due to filesharing.
> > Additionally, most of your piracy is going on overseas, where US laws
> > don't apply.
>
> Not a single one has.
>
> Janis Ian is a multiple Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter who loves
> the idea of file sharing and pretty much rails against the RIAA in this
> two-part article on her website.
>
> Read: http://www.janisian.com/article-internet_debacle.html

Good article.

Again, I'm not the RIAA's biggest fan. But from a business and law
sense, I get what they're saying. You're not allowed to impede
someone's profit through mass distribution. If anyone thought someone
was doing it to try and tank a company, they gummint would be all over
it. But I do encourage everyone to read Janis' article. And in the
end, we are talking about less profit for the big recording companies.
They're not going under anytime soon. They're huge corporate entities.
Let's not lie about that either.

>
> The popular group Harvey Danger released their latest album for free on
> the Internet, and here's why:
>
> http://www.harveydanger.com/press/why.php

I may actually check this out. I liked Flagpole Sitta. They will get
more exposure this way. Guess their experiment depends on how good the
album is. If it's good, they're golden. If it's a big blob of meh or
worse, all the internet in the world's not gonna help them.

>
> That should be enough for now.
>

Yeah, I wasn't really planning to write a book about it.

--
trippy
mhm31x9 Smeeter#29 WSD#30
sTaRShInE_mOOnBeAm aT HoTmAil dOt CoM

NP: "To Live And Die In L.A." -- Wang Chung

"Now, technology's getting better all the time and that's fine,
but most of the time all you need is a stick of gum, a pocketknife,
and a smile."

-- Robert Redford "Spy Game"

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