the RIAA strikes again

[ÆNIMA]

There's a reason you pay for CDs, someone put work into making that CD.

Forget the CD, someone put money into making the music on that CD, they need to eat...they're human too.


If you think it's moral to download an entire album off the internet, and you do so, you're a thief.

You deserve to get prosecuted.


I don't care what you bastards say about price, I know you would still download a $5 album off the internet. Don't lie, you're thieves.


Just because something's a little expensive, doesn't make it correct to steal it, you don't need it. You don't need it to live off of, it's entertainment. Take some freaking responsibility into your life.

Common thieves.


Conc, how many underground bands have you heard of on the opposite coast as you?

Wide recognition means that a new album would be in almost any CD store, any online site, and people will get the word. For example, do you know when A Perfect Circle's new album is coming out? If you don't, thousands of others do. Do you know when those underground bands on the opposite side of the country as you are debuting their new album? Hundreds might get word. The public doesn't want to feed off underground, there's too much talent wasted that way.

I understand the bitrates with MP3s, the CD's still better, it's like comparing CDs with vinyl.


It's still stealing, you can't argue that.

[Scout1]

and i though that stupidity and retardness of this great power is only available to stark

getting sued for $150k for downloading a nursery song off a legal program... Stark almost seems smart compare to that

[ConcreteSchlyrd]

We could toss nasty names back and forth all day long, but in the end, you're still missing the point.

I don't think anyone here is denying that they've received something they haven't paid for. But labelling them "common thieves" is a misnomer. I don't know about you, but when I think of a thief, I mentally picture some guy in striped prison clothes and a black face mask, breaking into someone's house to rape their daughter and steal their TV.

Other than the "loss" of property (and really no property is lost), it's a fairly victimless crime. The only "property" stolen is intellectual property, a concept that could be used for good, but instead is bastardized into archaic laws such as the DMCA. Comparing someone that's downloaded a few songs to "common thieves" is a tactic employed by the RIAA and MPAA, meant to vilify people and confuse the truth. I'm not endorsing downloading as much music as your bandwidth allows, however, the comparison is absolutely baseless and totally laughable.

Let's see, what else. Oh,

Originally posted by ÆNIMA
I don't care what you bastards say about price, I know you would still download a $5 album off the internet. Don't lie, you're thieves.

Says who? You? I'm willing to pay a reasonable amount for a decent product. I do it every day. But as beez said, price fixing is just plain wrong, and is totally against the law. Yeah yeah, "two wrongs don't make a right", but two Wrights definitely make an airplane.

Originally posted by ÆNIMA
Conc, how many underground bands have you heard of on the opposite coast as you?

I'm the wrong person for you to be asking about this if you want to defend your point. First of all, I'm in the midwest, so the whole east coast/west coast thing doesn't apply to me.

Second, I run in a group of people that follows music religiously. I've forgotten the names and styles of more bands and solo artists than you'll probably encounter in your lifetime.

But, if you want to continue on your baseless quest, the answer is "a shitload." And not even just music from the US. I listen to quite a few bands from the UK and Europe in general, Iceland, hell, even a few from Japan. (J-rock kicks complete ass.)

Originally posted by ÆNIMA
Wide recognition means that a new album would be in almost any CD store, any online site, and people will get the word. For example, do you know when A Perfect Circle's new album is coming out? If you don't, thousands of others do. Do you know when those underground bands on the opposite side of the country as you are debuting their new album? Hundreds might get word. The public doesn't want to feed off underground, there's too much talent wasted that way.

I have no idea when the new A Perfect Circle album is coming out, and chances are, 99% of people reading this don't know either. HOWEVER, with the advent of this new-fangled computer thingy called the Internet, I could find out in a matter of seconds. (I timed myself--it took me exactly 8 seconds to find out--September 16, 2003.) And it doesn't matter if you're a well-established corporate rock band or not.

This is a dumb pillar for an argument. Mass media no longer has the upper hand in instructing the public where to go for entertainment. Thank God.

Originally posted by ÆNIMA
I understand the bitrates with MP3s, the CD's still better, it's like comparing CDs with vinyl.

You're comparing apples and oranges again (PRODUCE JOKES ARE HILARIOUS). And seriously, if you can hear the difference between a 320kbps-encoded MP3 and a CD, I'll eat my hat. Even most recording engineers I know can't distinguish.

In closing, you're being brainwashed, AEnima. Maybe it's all that sneaker-gazing mope rock (or fist-pumping anthem rock, take your pick) that you listen to, but you're not seeing the entire picture. Yes, we all understand that it's not legal. No one's debating that. What we're saying is that:

1) The major labels have been price fixing for DECADES now. ILLEGAL
2) Suing someone for doing something illegal when you yourself are breaking the law is retarded at best, ludicrous at worst.

We understand that artists, recording engineers, producers, etc need to make a living. However, for that to work in today's society, the major label's business model must change. It's not something that needs to have a countless number of new laws and litigation. The RIAA did this exact same thing when cassette decks came out, and it's still around today, isn't it? SAME DEAL. DIFFERENT TIME.

The idea is this: Sell me a good product at a reasonable price, and I'll buy it.

[sTuPiD-gErBiL]

Originally posted by ÆNIMA
alot of junk that repeats over and over again

you should really do some research on just how much these artists make on cd sales. believe me.. the only people who are suffering from music piracy are the recording industry and mainstream record labels. mainstream artists make killings off of concert tickets and merch more than their flimsy cd income (assuming they even get income from their cds, since many artists tend to blow their entire budget overproducing their albums and end up not being able to pay their budget back with cd sales, regardless of piracy).

for example, we'll look at tool.... i recently drove to oklahoma city to see them play. tickets were $40 a pop (floor was $60, i think). let's go high-end and assume the venue took a 75% portion of the ticket sales (usually lower)... well the place was packed (estimate about 8,000 people, probably much higher but we'll keep it low for arguement's sake). that means tool just pulled in $80,000... and probably spent about $20,000 paying their travelling crew and road expenses. then you have merchandise... shirts were approx $20 a piece and kids were buying them heavily. i can't even estimate the money they made off of that. i know i'm just throwing out numbers, but they're very reasonable numbers for this industry... and that's still a shitload of money in just one night. then multiply that by how many shows they hit in one tour. my point is, tool definitely does not suffer from music piracy.

the only artists that live off of their cd sales are the underground artists who self-produce their own stuff and sell directly to people at shows so that they can actually keep almost their entire price of their cd. and in situations like that, you'll rarely find a band charging more than $10 per cd because their goal is to actually sell cds and not scare away people with obscenely high prices.

so if you want to blame anyone for music piracy, blame the RIAA. it's their fault for overcharging on everything and forcing people to become "common thieves."

[bloodzombie]

The recording industry just agreed to drop the price of CD's by about 40%. You don't think the cost of cds has been (and arguably still is after a 40% drop) out of control?

The recording industry is simply taking a bite in the ass that they completely deserve. if they can successfuly alter their business plan to incorporate the new technology, they'll survive. If they can't, they'll die out, and I say good riddance.

[stark]

Originally posted by Scout1
and i though that stupidity and retardness of this great power is only available to stark

getting sued for $150k for downloading a nursery song off a legal program... Stark almost seems smart compare to that

i don't know where my knowledge came into play, but anyways... it's like, you can buy a bong, legally, but everyone knows they're meant for smoking pot, which is illegal.


and don't bring me into things i'm not a part of.

[bloodzombie]

Actually, they're cracking down on the sale of bongs and stuff. I read a whole artical where they were talking about randomly busting head shops to send a message.

[ÆNIMA]

gerbil, i don't know where you quoted that from, but i didn't say it in this post


I don't care how you want to rationalize this issue. The fact of the matter is that if you download albums without paying any money, you are stealing. Stealing is against the law, therefore there are consequences. Granted, the 12 year old girl downloading theme songs is wrong because anyone with any intuition knows that this girl is not piratting the material. But there are many who are...and they deserve the consequences for breaking the law.

[geekbot]

The RIAA is not suing anyone who has downloaded CDs. They can't because they can't find out what you have downloaded. They are only suing people who happen to have files in their shared directory that may be available for other people to download (because they can find out this information by searching for RIAA titles, etc).

This means that they are NOT specifically suing a single person who is "stealing" any music. They do not care if these people own the CDs and ripped music that they have the rights to use.

Large corporations have the benefit of economy of scale. The more you produce, the cheaper it is to produce it because you have already paid for the the overhead cost of producing a master, advertisement, etc. They should be able to sell at a lower price than small companies or people who do it on their own.

But why are the cost of CDs so high when they are cheaper to produce than tapes? Why are they sold at 1000% the cost of production? Because they have a monopoly. But there are other alternatives now. Anyone who has a CD writer knows it costs less than $1 to burn an album. Anyone with an internet connection knows that it is possible to distribute music at next to nothing. Knowing this, why would anyone pay $18 for a copy at the store?

From kuro5shin.org:

The quick summary: Compact discs and their immediate substitutes are being sold at approximately 10 times their marginal cost of production, and therefore a black market has arisen, exactly as predicted by classical economics. The solution is to reduce the price of compact discs and their immediate substitutes to equal their marginal cost of production; once this is done, the black market will go away.

The RIAA cannot stop the backlash. And they aren't winning any support by suing 12-year-old Brianna LaHara for downloading "If You're Happy and You Know It." People are realizing that the product/services they provide are not worth the inflated prices, that their busness model is outdated, and they are fighting back.

http://www.downhillbattle.org/
http://www.magnetbox.com/riaa/

[Black Alpha]

Originally posted by Bilbo
Conc, gotta hand it to you. You are the main man at dissecting dumbass posts. I wish other people would put in as much effort (including me) into their posts as you, maybe if they did the forums wouldn't be as boring to read.

[Verthanthi]

Originally posted by bloodzombie
I got another idea... how cool would it be if we started a trend where everyone who d/ls a cd that they like would send a couple bucks directly to the artist?

There's something like that for software, it could work for music, I guess.

[ÆNIMA]

who would go about organizing that, getting addresses for every single band?

and how many people would actually follow suit?:\

it'd be a nice trend, the people who deserve the money would get it

[bloodzombie]

I don't know how many people would follow suit, a couple hundred at best. if someone made a website, I'd help research addresses, and a lot of people would probably submit addresses, we'd just have to get them on a website.

[froedrick]

ok, I don't usually read much about this shit.. because simply mainstream/recording industries just piss me right off. But christ conc THANK YOU. That post showed me everything I'd need to know about the situation and was very informative. thanks again

[Verthanthi]

Most bands have a fanclub or whatever on their website. You can use that address.