Stop Music For Free, Pleads Record Industry

Reuters via Yahoo ^ | July 10, 2002 | Paul Majendie

[BlkConserv]

It AIN'T stealing....this is simply an extension of capitalism at work here.

If the monopolistic suits that are strangling the record industry would wake the crap up out of their drunken stupor they'd had devised a fair and profitable system by know so everybody wins.

You can't fight technology....

[Paid4This]

Copyright law is fairly clear - once I purchase music I can make copies for friends and acquantances as long as I don't sell it. That's all P2P is, a way for people to transfer music they have paid for between one another.

If the record companies could prove that you are transmitting music that you didn't pay for, they might have a case. But they can't.

Most of my lawyer friends agree that Napster shut down because they couldn't afford to fight the legal challenge. If they could have gone to court, they would have won.

It's not stealing - that's what the recording industry does to the artists. Bands that make money these days make money by touring. The recordable music industry is dead. Only the live performance will have value in the future.

I'm wondering that as the computers become faster, will the the same fate await motion pictures? Will we see a rebirth of the stage?

[Alberta's Child]

I agree, but it would seem that something like Napster is actually hovering in a legal gray area. I don't think Napster is any different than a VCR, and yet the television networks are still around even though everyone has a VCR.

If I want to buy a book, I can go to Barnes and Noble and browse through it before buying it. If I want to buy a CD, there is no such thing as "browsing" because I can never return it once I open it.

[Malcolm]

Wrong is wrong, but the music industry should have seized the opportunity, like buying Napster, instead of the legal path they chose to pursue. Before Nap, I used to go to a used cassette and cd shop in north Atlanta. The artists/RIAA got nothing out of that either. The record companies should have came out with customizable CDS/cassettes, with songs selected by the customer, and in MP3 format, for a discount. They would have made more money that way. But NOOOOOOO, they said, let's sue those slackers, and reclaim the heyday of the record companies. Well, they music biz is being rewritten as we speak, and sorry RIAA, but you are being written out of it. You could have benefited so much, but because you chose poorly, you now lose out. Good riddance.....

[BikerNYC]

Stealing music off the internet that you didn't pay for is ZERO DIFFERENT than stealing a sweater from a dept store.

If you download and print a copy of the Mona Lisa, are your stealing from the Louvre because you are getting to see something without having to pay the price of admission to see it?

Your sweater analogy doesn't work. It would work if you said that taking music off the internet is like taking a picture of a sweater in a department store and then finding a way to transform that picture into a sweater. In that case, the sweater stays in the department store, but you have yourself a sweater as well.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

You're right, they should have kept up with the times.

The RIAA reminds me of Kmart whining about Wal-mart's success.

[BikerNYC]

They completely ignore all property rights

These property rights you speak of are contained in copyright laws, but why should they be the way they are? Why shouldn't copyrights last 6 months? Perhaps that is how we solve this. Shorten copyrights to 6 months, let those who want to hear new music soon pay for their music, and the rest of us can copy it after 6 months.

[Paid4This]

They completely ignore all property rights, they don't even understand how album sales push concert ticket sales.

Actually, people like you and the RIAA ignore the property rights of people who have purchased CDs. RIAA wants to make any copying of CDs illegal, even if I'm making a tape copy to play in my car. That is legal under copyright law, as are most P2P services.

You also say that record sales drive concert sales. Radio play and word of mouth drive concert sales. For proof, look at some of the most successful concerts this summer - Sammy Hagar and david Lee Roth, and Ozfest. None of those guys have recorded a new CD in years. But there music is played frequently on the radio.

And for word of mouth - try to get tickets to say, a Hank Williams III show after it starts. Not gonna happen, and his albums have sold poorly and he gets very very little radio play. Word of mouth drives his concert profits.

The sooner the music recording industry dies the better . . don't worry, I'm sure they'll find some way to make money.

[Alberta's Child]

It's also worth noting, BTW, that "piracy" used to be a real problem in the publishing industry as well. To deal with it they simply started creating paperback books, which made them so cheap that nobody would bother taking the time to re-produce them anymore.

[eno_]

Life imitates art. One reason publishers threw money down the e-books rathole is that they could end resale of books, and control (i.e. charge for) library lending.

Look in the Constitution. Are publishers even mentioned in the IP protection clause? Anti-P2P and DRM are all a publishers' game. The economic impact on the people who actually create will be on aggregate tiny. The entire record industry could vanish and 99.9% of musicians would get out of bed the next day and do what they do as if nothing at all had happened. And the benefit of NOT having the Backstreet Boys makes killing off the record industry a Service to Mankind in and of itself.

[eureka!]

"The music biz is is in its death-throes"

I wish that could be said for the main of Hollywood and the major news networks....

[mewzilla]

I'm not sure your analogy works though. With the Mona Lisa you're talking monetary value. A print off the net isn't going to replace the real thing. Napster is the equivalent of getting your computer to download a wearable sweater. That's the purpose of the MP3 technology, right? (I don't have it so I'm not really conversant with it). If that's case the music you're pulling off the net will be good enough that you won't need to buy the CD. That's theft in my book.

[RJL]

I believe one should pay for an artist’s work if they want to have that work available to them.

However, I don't hear the record industry crying about my having to buy a new license every time a new recording media comes out.

I am old enough to have purchased the same album on:

1. Vinyl records.
2. Eight track tapes.
3. Cassette tapes.
4. CD-ROM.

Just as they should get paid for their work, once I have purchased a license, I shouldn't have to keep purchasing a new license for the same product on a different media.

[eno_]

Hear hear, intellectual property was authorized in the Constitution ONLY in the context of creating a benefit for the public. This is in sharp contrast with real property protections in the Constitution. That is to say, you only get to have a patent or copyright because the IP will go public domian soon enough to benefit the public. Again, by contrast, private property has NO expiration date. IP protection is clearly inferior to other rights, and if laws requiring DRM trample our other rights, that is a perversion of the Founders' intent.

[discostu]

Ah yes the "short copyright" solution. Now ask yourself this: if you were in charge of some media company why in the world would you spend the millions necessary to find an artist, get his songs recorded and polished, put together a CD, mass produce the CD, distribute the CD and advertise the CD if you would only own the copyright on it for about half the time that process took? Not gonna happen, things get published because the publisher thinks he can make money on it, if it becomes free to the public (only the public that downloads it off the internet of course, you don't get pressed CDs for free) in half a year they won't be able to make money on it (remember top selling albums are in the top 20 longer than that) unless it's a mega seller... but then why would anyone pay for the big album when they could wait just a couple of months and get it for free? Not happening, that's a sure fire recipe to kill the entire media industry, and I don't mean drive the big dogs under, I mean kill the whole freaking industry say goodbye to new music books and movies they aren't going to be made anymore.

[berned]

If the monopolistic suits that are strangling the record industry would wake the crap up out of their drunken stupor they'd had devised a fair and profitable system by know so everybody wins.

This is exactly the kind of "reasoning" I would expect to see on a tie-dyed left-wing website, not a conservative pro-capitalism one.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

The record industry pleaded on Wednesday with consumers to stop downloading and recording music for free because piracy was strangling the multi-billion-dollar industry.

The real pirates are the multi-billion dollar record companies who mostly just steal the works of the people who actually created them.

And what gives Ted Turner the right to earn royalties in perpetuity on movies that he had nothing to do with creating?

Janice Ian on File Sharing

Courtney Love Does the Math

[BikerNYC]

If that's case the music you're pulling off the net will be good enough that you won't need to buy the CD.

But downloading a picture of the Mona Lisa and hanging it on your wall is allowing you to see it without having to pay the price of admission to the Louvre or to even buy a book published by the Louvre with a puicture in it. True, you don't have the actual brushstrokes in your downloaded picture, but downloaded music doesn't contain the fancy cover artwork that often comes along with CDs. In both cases, you are getting a substitute that you find acceptable, but which is not quite what the experience would be if you had the original.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

This is exactly the kind of "reasoning" I would expect to see on a tie-dyed left-wing website, not a conservative pro-capitalism one.

Please see post #57.

[WhiteGuy]

Based on the crap that my kid watches/listens to.....

I'd say less "new" music is a plus.