NationStates Jolt Archive

I have to do a report on music downloading/file sharing for school, and I need some ideas. I don't even know whether I'm for it or against it.

Please post some helpful links and/or your personal opinions on the subject.

Persuade me.

Well most of the money for CD's actually goes to the recording companies instead of the artists who make their money off concert stuff and merchandise.

I think it should be legal.

1. When you get a music, does that mean you want all that packaging in a CD and extra songs that may suck? It happens. People pay 20 dollars for one damned song only to be left with a whole lot of other crap they didn't want.

So if you want to listen TO A SONG. It makes sense to bypass the actual CD packaging product which you are paying the RIAA for, and just download the song which is the ACTUAL product you want to buy.

2. Making it illegal stops the growth of technology for our country to appease corporations that really do nothing to benefit the customers and the technology. What incentive for a good idea to people have if they put in all that hard work in creating good programming only to be sued, forced to pay damages (of which no legitimate damage was done), and arrested because people may have abused your technology for.

3. The nature of sharing is a very broad practice. Does the government have the right to arrest 8 year olds or grandmas for sharing a file or song? That is essentially what is being done. Does it seem right that your teacher could be doing her job and suddenly a cop or lawyer come in and issue her a subpeona for a lawsuit because her child was sharing files in a network which computers are designed to do without her consent?

Make no mistake about it. It is the American people being attacked by the RIAA which neither makes products people really want. Paying the artist directly in concerts is one thing. But making sharing illegal is going to result in ridiculous lawsuit abuses which is one thing Americans DO NOT NEED.

I have to do a report on music downloading/file sharing for school, and I need some ideas. I don't even know whether I'm for it or against it.

Please post some helpful links and/or your personal opinions on the subject.

Persuade me.

It might be worthwhile to point out that the record company works by paying the artist a royalty based on the sale price of the CD. Since the label has to pay for the packaging and [usually] production costs, they get to make more money per sale than the artist. They have a legitimate concern if there's a decrease in sales since they lose more money than the artist.

This is all well and good, but the record comapny executives are turning around and telling us that they're starving the arists and getting people like Metallica to come out against it: I find it difficult to trust anyone who's more or less someone else's pawn. I'm sure those cats could ruin your life if you didn't say what they wanted to hear. I prefer people that are honest with themselves and tell the rest of us "hey, we're fucked if you do this."

Still, they're assholes.

What's happening here is the market is shifting away from the RIAA and into internet providers and in some cases user fees for the programs or server access. The RIAA needed to fire their analysts after Napster came out: the right thing to do would have been to look at how to make money off of it as opposed to presuming they could somehow monitor and regulate the ever growing downloading habits of the worldwide population.

In short, there's fault on both sides. Is it stealing? Sure, technically it is. They do hold copyrights on those recordings, and I'm very pro-property. I'm also pro-market, and I think it's more worthwhile to reward the people who have the initiative to capitalize on market trends and new innovations than to enforce the will of those who have failed. The recording agency holds the rights to the recordings, but with rights comes responsibility. If you're in charge of every reproducing of that recording ever to be made, you should have a contractual obligation to make sure it produces the highest return possible within the market. You want respect for the artist? Get off your asses and do your homework; don't miss out on obvious trends and freak out trying to stop them when they've gotten out of control.

I'd go so far as to say "fuck the RIAA" by this point and wish the artists luck. Sure, it'd be bad for a number of folks, but this is the price you pay for incompetence.

I also think that its wrong, but I do it anyway.

Why?

I see it as fair in many ways.

The average album these days costs about 12-16 bucks on cd.
You pay an exhorbitant amount for a crap record, by a crap artist, and maybe, just maybe, get one good song.

Fuck that.

Would you pay 12 dollars for a gallon of gas that only would take your car one mile?

Musicians have the right to get paid for thier songs, and they do.

Metallica for instance are so filthy rich that they were able to give their new bassist, one million dollars, upfront, as a signing bonus, and promises of many m,ore to come.

Somehow, I dont think they are hurting much.

Considering there is a big difference between downloading and sharing I fear your poll is meaningless....

Downloading is getting songs from someone else. There is nothing wrong with this as such; when you buy a cd in the shop you are also getting songs from someone else. When you listen to the radio you get songs fom someone else (though you are not supposed to store them on tape or cd in the radiocase - unless you somehow pay for that. Like with a fee on blank tapes). All perfecty fine, as is downloading.

It however becomes illegal when the person offering the songs for download does not have the rights to do so. He (writing he/she everytime is a bother) is then giving away stuff which is not his to give away - which of course is a crime. People that try to justify this with claims like "the original artist is being ripped off by the record industry anyway" or "cds are ridiciously expensive" are missing the point: the artist is *choosing* to have *his* work distributed in this way. If you do not like that, you should not buy his buy his work and thereby force him to adapt his strategy. You should not start taking his stuff and do something with it without his permission.

I like it because it makes artist earn their money with playing, seperating the crap from the gold

If the music industry sell cds at a greedy price more people will pirate and a potentially large profit is reduced.

The less greedy they are the less pirating will happen and they still make a profit.

Pirating is a popular reaction to a greedy rip-off attitude.

Well, nowadays, there's always iTunes for those that only want single tracks.

I download/share music a great deal, and if it turns out I like the group, I buy their CD. There's basically only one thing that will keep me from buying a CD of a group I like: Copy protection

This vile invention (that the record companies have the nerve to call "Enhanced") does practically nothing to stop the large-scale copyers and instead only punishes the common listener. The fact that most are unplayable in a computer means that I won't buy it, seeing as how I do most of my listening there.

Companies that put this on their products don't deserve my money.

Suppose you know someone who is in a band and you think their band really rocks. You think people would dig their music and would be willing to pay money for it. The band is broke, they practice at the bassist's garage and play gigs that basically provide them with gas money. You are not broke. You have plenty of money. You think if you help the band out you can make some money off of it too and you can both benefit. The band becomes rich and famous and gets to play their music to bigger audiences, you get money out of it, everyone is happy. So, you call the band members and make them a proposal. This is a risky venture and you are willing to provide all of the money up front with no guarantee of any return, so you obviously expect to have first dibs on the money. You offer them a small percentage of sales. You with me so far? Now, you rent a studio, you hire a good producer, studio technicians, studio musicians, and all of the people involved in producing a cd. You also hire some graphic artists to design liner art, and some photographers for the band pictures on the cd. You pay for the actual production costs of stamping all those cds and putting them all together, as well as the distribution costs to get them to stores. You hire some publicists to put together press kits and design an ad campaign for the band. You grease palms to get the band on the radio and on MTV. You pay the airfare for the band and their entourage as they travel from place to place to promote the new album. By the time you are ready to release the cd, you have invested several million dollars on this band. You release the cd and the music is a resounding success. Everyone is listening to it. Everyone and their momma has it on their iPOD. Yet cd sales are abysmal because everyone stole the cd from the internet. Sure, the band goes on to make millions from their concerts but you took all the risks and put in all of the money and you got jipped!

Now, think about this. For every band that is successful there are dozens of other bands that flopped. For you, as a record producer, to make money you have to cover for the losses of all the other bands that you spent the same amount of money on and whose cd's people simply didnt like.

So, is it cool to steal music from the internet? no. You are hurting the entire chain of music production (distributors, record stores, producers, technicians, record executives, studio musicians, etc.). You are also hurting smaller bands with more unique sounds. Those bands might have what it takes to make it big, but the record company wont sign them because the risk is so much higher now that people steal music that something even slightly experimental cant be given a chance.

Suppose you know someone who is in a band and you think their band really rocks. You think people would dig their music and would be willing to pay money for it. The band is broke, they practice at the bassist's garage and play gigs that basically provide them with gas money. You are not broke. You have plenty of money. You think if you help the band out you can make some money off of it too and you can both benefit. The band becomes rich and famous and gets to play their music to bigger audiences, you get money out of it, everyone is happy. So, you call the band members and make them a proposal. This is a risky venture and you are willing to provide all of the money up front with no guarantee of any return, so you obviously expect to have first dibs on the money. You offer them a small percentage of sales. You with me so far? Now, you rent a studio, you hire a good producer, studio technicians, studio musicians, and all of the people involved in producing a cd. You also hire some graphic artists to design liner art, and some photographers for the band pictures on the cd. You pay for the actual production costs of stamping all those cds and putting them all together, as well as the distribution costs to get them to stores. You hire some publicists to put together press kits and design an ad campaign for the band. You grease palms to get the band on the radio and on MTV. You pay the airfare for the band and their entourage as they travel from place to place to promote the new album. By the time you are ready to release the cd, you have invested several million dollars on this band. You release the cd and the music is a resounding success. Everyone is listening to it. Everyone and their momma has it on their iPOD. Yet cd sales are abysmal because everyone stole the cd from the internet. Sure, the band goes on to make millions from their concerts but you took all the risks and put in all of the money and you got jipped!

Now, think about this. For every band that is successful there are dozens of other bands that flopped. For you, as a record producer, to make money you have to cover for the losses of all the other bands that you spent the same amount of money on and whose cd's people simply didnt like.

So, is it cool to steal music from the internet? no. You are hurting the entire chain of music production (distributors, record stores, producers, technicians, record executives, studio musicians, etc.). You are also hurting smaller bands with more unique sounds. Those bands might have what it takes to make it big, but the record company wont sign them because the risk is so much higher now that people steal music that something even slightly experimental cant be given a chance.

This is why I'm an advocate of having the band handle production and distribution themselves. It's not hurting smaller bands either because the vast majority of them wouldn't be found on a major label in the first place. The chances of "hitting the bigtime" in music is incredibly low. No one should count on it as a primary source of income in today's society, especially not the way the people in that industry have been handling it for about the last 30 years

Yes it hurts technicians and producers and distributors, and it's unfortunate that they have to pay for other people's mistakes. But the fact of the matter is the proliferation of the personal computer and the ever-increasing number of downloaders is a very real thing and things will change because of it.

This is why I'm an advocate of having the band handle production and distribution themselves. It's not hurting smaller bands either because the vast majority of them wouldn't be found on a major label in the first place. The chances of "hitting the bigtime" in music is incredibly low. No one should count on it as a primary source of income in today's society, especially not the way the people in that industry have been handling it for about the last 30 years

Yes it hurts technicians and producers and distributors, and it's unfortunate that they have to pay for other people's mistakes. But the fact of the matter is the proliferation of the personal computer and the ever-increasing number of downloaders is a very real thing and things will change because of it.

Bands cant handle production and distribution themselves. How many bands do you know with brains? Some genres may have more than others, but most of the time you can count them in one hand. Bands are composed of musicians, not business people. Not only do they almost always lack the skill and business sense to produce and distribute their own recordings, but it is rare for them to ever have the money to fund such.

Bands cant handle production and distribution themselves. How many bands do you know with brains? Some genres may have more than others, but most of the time you can count them in one hand. Bands are composed of musicians, not business people. Not only do they almost always lack the skill and business sense to produce and distribute their own recordings, but it is rare for them to ever have the money to fund such.

When they can't do it themself what they need is someone to help them that won't fuck them over when a good opportunity arises. This is not a practical idea to cling to as we can see what large industry has done with these people's work.

Saying "How many bands do you know with brains?" disturbs me on a number of levels because it appeals to the idea that we're all stupid and lazy and can't better ourselves. I'd rather that the industry favor the people who can really step up and get their shit done and make some money. It's too bad it's not in production and distribution anymore.

Also, saying they don't have the money to start up is more or less telling me that "some people are poor" which I already know and is a basic fact of life. Internet piracy won't necessarily slow the distribution of music anyway, since it can travel much faster and with less energy over the internet than by mail or mass-distribution. If anything, your choices will proliferate.

I think its understandable to want to ban music downloading "in the interests of fairness", but modern day artists are so bloody rich, what with royalties and the like, I don't really see the point of banning it. Maybe we should ban downloading of music by little-known acts. Let them have their money.

Then again, I don't download very often. I just borrow CDs from friends and rip them onto miPod...

I think legal music downloads are a great thing. Sites like AllOfMP3.com and things like Itunes are good because they force artists to be good at their music as opposed to their publishing skills, media image and attractiveness. When you download a song, you get just that, a song. You dont get all the packaging and parafinalia that costs the most money. For more infomation on music downloads etc, here is a very good website. Its the BBC's documentary "The Hitch hikers guide to the future" presented by Douglas Adams. The one you want to listen to is the one about music as it explains downloads etc very well

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hhgttf/

When they can't do it themself what they need is someone to help them that won't fuck them over when a good opportunity arises. This is not a practical idea to cling to as we can see what large industry has done with these people's work.

Yes, large industry has turned what used to be only a hobby into an industry capable of turning an artist into a millionaire, sometimes overnight. They do have such people, they are called managers. They get payed 15% of whatever the artist gets payed, so its in their interest to help the artist succeed.


Also, saying they don't have the money to start up is more or less telling me that "some people are poor" which I already know and is a basic fact of life. Internet piracy won't necessarily slow the distribution of music anyway, since it can travel much faster and with less energy over the internet than by mail or mass-distribution. If anything, your choices will proliferate.

Distribution is not the expensive part, the expensive part is the production and marketing. I never claimed distribution was a problem. When the technology improves enough it wont be a major issue but as of right now professional studios are still prohibitively expensive. When the money in the music industry dries up so will the people trained to make proper use of that equipment. There is a big difference between the kid down the block producing your latest release using his PC and an audio engineer producing your music using multimillion dollar hardware.

Yes, large industry has turned what used to be only a hobby into an industry capable of turning an artist into a millionaire, sometimes overnight. They do have such people, they are called managers. They get payed 15% of whatever the artist gets payed, so its in their interest to help the artist succeed.

It's also in many cases very profitable to sell them out.

Distribution is not the expensive part, the expensive part is the production and marketing. I never claimed distribution was a problem.

You are also hurting smaller bands with more unique sounds. Those bands might have what it takes to make it big, but the record company wont sign them because the risk is so much higher now that people steal music that something even slightly experimental cant be given a chance.

Does this sound like a distribution concern to anyone else?

When the technology improves enough it wont be a major issue but as of right now professional studios are still prohibitively expensive. When the money in the music industry dries up so will the people trained to make proper use of that equipment. There is a big difference between the kid down the block producing your latest release using his PC and an audio engineer producing your music using multimillion dollar hardware.

Speaking as someone who is planning on entering the field of audio engineering in the next 5 years, I'm here to tell you that it can be nearly completely self-taught and in many cases the technical aspects of production are fundamentally identical no matter what kind of work you're doing. With modern technology, there isn't much difference, as you put it, from "the kid down the block" and a professional, studio-grade sound.

A top of the line, primo recording studio costs $10-50,000 for the equipment alone. All of the components to such a studio are freely availible on the free market, and given that musical talent doesn't spawn overnight, you can gather the parts gradually as you practice and so forth. How about letting us have a crack at it ourselves, hmm? Why continue to appeal to the notion that mankind is a helpless, degenerate do-nothing without other peoples' help?

How about letting us have a crack at it ourselves, hmm?

Bands that want to do that should definately be encouraged. However, if someone would rather use an established company that too is allowable. And, to return to the original topic of this thread before we deviate too far : others should then not make the decision for them, spreading their music without consent. Their choice to be helpless, degenerate do-nothings.. our choice to not buy anything from them.

Bands that want to do that should definately be encouraged. However, if someone would rather use an established company that too is allowable. And, to return to the original topic of this thread before we deviate too far : others should then not make the decision for them, spreading their music without consent. Their choice to be helpless, degenerate do-nothings.. our choice to not buy anything from them.

OK, let me put it this way: the only way you're going to stop filesharing is to lock up everyone who does it or somehow find a way to intimidate every ISP in the nation into blacklisting people who download. I can't help but guess there would be almost no room for a concept like this in today's politics. The savvy musician sees the internet as a boon; it is a wonderful outlet for distribution and its a great way to expose people to your work. The, ah... less savvy musicians see it as you describe; "spreading music without consent." I've got news: music sharing has existed in some form since the process of recording began.

People are downloading songs for free primarily because the record industry grossly mishandled its position within "its" market. "Unwanted distribution" [as if that's somehow a problem under the tenets of capitalism] wouldn't be a problem had the record industry had sensible people in charge.

As Peter Dolving (back with The Haunted again) said: the people who are really into music will fileshare download a CD to get it before it comes out, then buy it when it does come out anyways. The people who are really hurt by filesharing are the shitty pop artists that nobody really gives a shit about, are fads, etc.

On top of that, from what I've gathered independent artists can make a lot of money if they own the rights to their music, just selling albums at the venues they play. Once you get past the initial recording costs, CDs cost dick to produce, so you can sell them for 5-6 bucks properly. This may be incorrect, but I've read that the recording can be done for 50k ish, which isn't exactly a small amount of money but any time you go into business for yourself you're going to need starting capital.

There's no turning back on file sharing and downloading, it's just a great invention. I think that as long as there is a way to cover production and marketing costs and give the band their share it should be legal (and listeners should have the freedom to play the tune in whatever format or place they choose).

They should turn to shareware to see how they've done it.

OK, let me put it this way: the only way you're going to stop filesharing is to lock up everyone who does it or somehow find a way to intimidate every ISP in the nation into blacklisting people who download. I can't help but guess there would be almost no room for a concept like this in today's politics. The savvy musician sees the internet as a boon; it is a wonderful outlet for distribution and its a great way to expose people to your work. The, ah... less savvy musicians see it as you describe; "spreading music without consent." I've got news: music sharing has existed in some form since the process of recording began.

People are downloading songs for free primarily because the record industry grossly mishandled its position within "its" market. "Unwanted distribution" [as if that's somehow a problem under the tenets of capitalism] wouldn't be a problem had the record industry had sensible people in charge.
For as much as I sometimes disagree with your objective morality I completely agree here :)
There is no physical way they can restrict it without being able to gain access to worldwide ISP subscription records (so they can convert IP -> name) and then being able to threaten each individual user not going to happen (the verizon case got overturned … ISP’s are no longer required to turn over their records)(amazing how hush hush that was kept)
The internet is here … you have to deal with it.
Personally I don’t download music anymore because I love whole albums but I still do the comedy video clips or music video thing all the time.

I think its understandable to want to ban music downloading "in the interests of fairness", but modern day artists are so bloody rich, what with royalties and the like, I don't really see the point of banning it. Maybe we should ban downloading of music by little-known acts. Let them have their money.

Then again, I don't download very often. I just borrow CDs from friends and rip them onto miPod...
The little-known acts benefit the most from downloading, since they rarely have good distribution and PR. They don't make much money from record sales anyway, they make more from touring.

I think it can be positive for artists getting their music out there. Record companies could help themselves by lowering the price of CD's. Why are CD's way more expensive than cassettes? Because they can get away with it. They're not more expensive to make. It's stupid.

For as much as I sometimes disagree with your objective morality I completely agree here :)

Hiss!

There is no physical way they can restrict it without being able to gain access to worldwide ISP subscription records (so they can convert IP -> name) and then being able to threaten each individual user not going to happen (the verizon case got overturned ? ISP?s are no longer required to turn over their records)(amazing how hush hush that was kept)
The internet is here ? you have to deal with it.

That's wonderful news about the Verizon case, I hadn't heard that. At this point the phenomenon has gotten so out of control that the RIAA couldn't do anything about it even if the law was behind them 100%. Capitalism should reward those who can profit from change, as it should punish those too stupid to see it coming. I could have told you filesharing would do nothing but grow before Napster was shut down.

Hiss!



That's wonderful news about the Verizon case, I hadn't heard that. At this point the phenomenon has gotten so out of control that the RIAA couldn't do anything about it even if the law was behind them 100%. Capitalism should reward those who can profit from change, as it should punish those too stupid to see it coming. I could have told you filesharing would do nothing but grow before Napster was shut down.
Yeah it had been at least that is what we were told (Campuses are considered ISP’s so being the coordinator of the network here I have to deal with it a lot)


And yeah that big fight with napster was stupid all they did was draw attention to it (hell that’s where I first tried file sharing cause I heard of it on tv (honestly))
All it did was lead to some of the other massive ones that work more like a phone book then the old napster (sense their servers do not handle any illegal material just provide a listing of files and addresses they get around current legislation, that and a lot of their servers are hosted out of country)

The music industry is acting foolishly. The best chance of it surviving is if it embraces downloading. Filesharing would still has a place if this did happen. People could use it to give their music and homemade games away for free. Everyone wins.

The main advantage of filesharing is the idea of "try before you buy". For example: I only buy an album if I like at least 2 of the songs on it. I like R.E.Ms' song Leaving New York, but I won't buy Around the Sun (the album) unless I like another song. So I downloaded Electron Blue from Bearshare (as well as a couple of very interesting videos of a certain nature starring Cameron Diaz ;) ), which I'm listening to right now. I would have bought the album a few days ago, but I bought something else (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=419911)

This is a tough one for me. I personally believe that the band owns the song, and the label owns the publishing rights. So it only seems like the label can gripe if I am selling albums that I burnt myself.

However, when I download music, the artist gets no reparation, either.

This is a tough one for me. I personally believe that the band owns the song, and the label owns the publishing rights. So it only seems like the label can gripe if I am selling albums that I burnt myself.

However, when I download music, the artist gets no reparation, either.

The current, or traditional, sales model is broken, and needs to be replaced.

IMHO, there's no need for the publisher anymore.

Ok, here's how I justify it.
If I would buy the CD whithout having the songs I downloaded, I buy the CD.
If I would not buy the CD anyway, and just liked a couple of songs, then I won't buy the CD and I will download the songs.
This way no one is losing any money, as I'm not spending any less on music then I would otherwise.
So without biting into anyone's potential profits, I'm getting free stuff!

BTW, I did all this before the $.99 a song payservices were around, and were I still downloading, I would use them instead.

The current, or traditional, sales model is broken, and needs to be replaced.

IMHO, there's no need for the publisher anymore.

Pretty much all you need is a band, and studio and producer, and a secure website, and you are ready to go. The album does have a kind of collectable value to it though, so I would definitely like to see them stay.

Pretty much all you need is a band, and studio and producer, and a secure website, and you are ready to go. The album does have a kind of collectable value to it though, so I would definitely like to see them stay.

Ever since the CD came along, I haven't adjusted to the idea of album art that looks like a greeting card.

If I want an album, it's for the art, and I want them to put the CD in a huge sleeve with art on it.

Ever since the CD came along, I haven't adjusted to the idea of album art that looks like a greeting card.

If I want an album, it's for the art, and I want them to put the CD in a huge sleeve with art on it.

They should put them hardback books.

Plain filesharing should definitely be legal. Not all of it is of copyrighted files, or files that are available for purchase anymore (or within the area of the downloader). Those attacking the networks, usually only succeed in slowing down technological progress. Seems to me the RIAA and MPAA are only fighting for their own survival, since they could be made redundant by the technology.

Personally, I've stopped buying games/music/films since I got DSL, simply because it's much more convenient to download them. Same goes for TV-shows; I prefer to decide myself when I want to watch them, rather than let the TV networks do that for me (and, most shows I like to watch, don't run on the channels available to me). Also, I can create an unlimited number of backups, since the files I download don't have any form for copyprotection.

If there existed a legal (one that rewards the creators of the product) resource, which was just as easy and effective to use, as an average filesharing site/network, and the files were free of DRM, I would have been likely to use that one, instead of downloading pirated files (with the prices being reasonable, of course).