THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Fun Stuff => BAND => Topic started by: scarred on 19 Jun 2009, 12:27
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The best part? The "woman" (read: :evil: ) in question only downloaded 24 songs.
:police: http://pitchfork.com/news/35669-riaa-wins-192-m-in-file-sharing-suit/ :police:
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<3 RIAA
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That's crazy.
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What a fucking joke.
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I hope some musician pipes up and goes, "Hey, if songs are wroth $80,000 each, I need to be getting paid a lot more."
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actually, she downloaded something like 8,000 but they reduced the number of songs to be representitive of the whole and increased the fee per song.
still think it's wrong and horrible but at least it's not quite as insane as it initially sounds.
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I thought they quit doing this?
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Who can remember what the fuck the RIAA is actually for? They seem to be the music industry's equivalent to pedophilia.
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Record Industry Assholes Anonymous
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I thought they quit doing this?
Yep, this particular case has been going on for a long time. They have stopped. They also say (in the billboard article linked to in the pitchfork article linked to in the first post) that they're not going to ask the woman to pay this amount, they're just looking for settlement. Must be a PR nightmare for them.
I'd thought a big chunk must just be the judge awarding legal fees, given it's the 2nd trial in this case, but if the courts are allowed to fine you up to $150k per infringement in the States then... maybe not.
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actually, she downloaded something like 8,000 but they reduced the number of songs to be representitive of the whole and increased the fee per song.
still think it's wrong and horrible but at least it's not quite as insane as it initially sounds.
So, what, 1 920 000 / 8 000 = $240/song?
Oh dear (http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/7562/lol1d.jpg), I guess I'm cruising for a bruising (http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/6814/lol2d.jpg). I better start collecting the ~4.8m now.
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I love living in another country with no law enforcement, sucks to be her
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I've downloaded about 300 songs total. Out of my entire 6,000 file library.
And as much as that is, that's almost nothing compared to most of you people.
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I've downloaded about 300 songs total. Out of my entire 6,000 file library.
And as much as that is, that's almost nothing compared to most of you people.
What do you mean, "You people?"
I love the bald faced lies on the RIAA website such as
Q: Should devices such as CD burners be outlawed since they are an easy way of making illegal copies of others creative efforts?
Devices and technology are not the problem. It’s when people use technology to break the law that we take issue.
Again and again, we have embraced the technological advances that have allowed millions upon millions of people around the world to enjoy the music we create. We want fans to enjoy their iPods, CD burners, and other devices, but we want them to do so responsibly, respectfully, and within the law.
Which is completely untrue when you look at it's lawsuit against Diamond and other companies.
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I hope some musician pipes up and goes, "Hey, if songs are wroth $80,000 each, I need to be getting paid a lot more."
That's the angle that some of the anti-RIAA artists should be taking. Start demanding more money if the RIAA gets to claim damages that big, raise a big stink over it. The news loves a controversy, musicians claiming the RIAA is cheating them ought to get some attention. Would it stop the RIAA? Probably not. Would it give them a headache? Yes.
Or just blow up every RIAA building, but that wouldn't really be effective in anything but catharsis. Very very good catharsis, with a side dish of entertainment.
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I've downloaded about 300 songs total. Out of my entire 6,000 file library.
And as much as that is, that's almost nothing compared to most of you people.
What do you mean, "You people?"
Black people, of course. I am an incredible racist.
</sarcasm>
Looking at a lot of audiophiles on here, especially ones who frequent the mediafire thread so much. Y'all (you people!) would have downloaded far, far more than I have, especially with your fancy high-speed internets.
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audiophiles
I do not think this word means what you think it means
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Means different things in different places. The general accepted meaning here is someone who places high importance on audio quality - amongst people I talk to, it's someone who has a passion for music.
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I for one don't usually illegally download albums that are associated with the RIAA. (http://riaaradar.com)
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Tom, I love you.
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The RIAA may be assholes, but what a lot of people tend to miss is that they have a point.
Illegally downloading is breaking the law (hence the 'illegally' part) and yeah, they come on too strong. I'm not siding with the RIAA here, but if you break the law and you get caught, then you're probably going to prison. And if you try to defend your actions, you don't have a leg to stand on. It's not like you're stealing bread to feed your family or something. This is why I've stopped doing it and I'm steadily buying up the stuff I had illegally.
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Laws are so silly.
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The RIAA may be assholes, but what a lot of people tend to miss is that they have a point.
Illegally downloading is breaking the law (hence the 'illegally' part) and yeah, they come on too strong. I'm not siding with the RIAA here, but if you break the law and you get caught, then you're probably going to prison. And if you try to defend your actions, you don't have a leg to stand on. It's not like you're stealing bread to feed your family or something. This is why I've stopped doing it and I'm steadily buying up the stuff I had illegally.
It's always good to have a backup plan (http://tinyurl.com/nnlyxm).
EDIT: It's okay, we have Moby on our side. (http://torrentfreak.com/moby-the-riaa-needs-to-be-disbanded-090620/)
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I'm not saying laws can't be bullshit, I'm just saying if you get arrested for downloading 100,000 songs I'd expect to go to prison.
I don't think it's the ownership of the song itself necessarily, so much as the ownership of that recording of it. I mean I can see why when you've put a lot of hard work into a recording to get fuck all in return for it.
Although come to think of it, it's not like it's the sequence of notes that is everything. Songs with lyrics people put their heart and soul into them to try and make something unique and I think it's fair enough if they don't want that to be open source.
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It is important to note though, that in this case no artist is suing this lady and no artist is benefitting from this move.
What we have here is a third party that sues someone in order to profit from somebody else's work.
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Man, America;
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Tommy, I respect your principled nature, but this ideal you seem to have, also expressed in threads outside of this one, that anyone who wants to make money from making their music is 1. a dick and 2. probably making bad music, disturbs me.
Anyway I think America has bigger problems than this. The media has a seizure if you see a boob on TV. If a film's rating states that anyone older than 17 should see it, no-one sees it. There's probably a few more hurdles before we get here.
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I look at spending money on buying some music as saying thanks to artists who I like. If they've already said they're happy for me to have their recorded music for free, then, OK, cool, but if they haven't made that explicit then I'd prefer to err on the side of caution, out of respect. Even if I thought they were crazy for asking for money for data over the internet, I don't think this would change much - I like the idea they're getting some dollars that will make it easier for them to keep on doing what they do when maybe they're sweating over feeding their kids, etc.
My views would probably be very different if I liked more music by apparently famous and rich people.
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Yeah, true, I just thought you were already off on a different tangent by talking about zeroes and ones and so on... do you think it would've been right to sue this woman if she'd got pirated CDs containing these songs?
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Am I the only interested in what the 24 songs were?
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I've seen the list in other news articles. The only ones I remember are Guns n Roses songs. As Scandanavian (always have to think twice about the spelling) War Machine said upthread, the 24 are a sort of specified slice of thousands of downloaded songs, anyway.
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If you want to charge people to see you play music live - I can understand that. You're putting on a show. I understand why money changes hands in this situation. Likewise, if you make a record and decide to have it printed to vinyl or compact disc and you give it some artwork and it's a tangible thing which people can own if they like - I can still understand that. At the point where it's a bunch of ones and zeros which don't in any way diminish or prohibit either of the above, forget it. I've heard all the arguments under the sun. It's nonsense.
What's your evidence for the bit I've put in bold, btw?
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A piece of vinyl or a compact disc is just a bunch of particles, why should I pay for it?
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It's kinda self evident. When I download music, I am not diminishing profit from a performers live show or their stock of physical merchandise. When I download music, I am also not preventing an artist from performing live or selling merchandise in any way, shape or form.
I don't really see that why that statement needs evidence behind it.
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Just to illustrate it a little bit further.
Imagine these two scenarios:
1) I download a music album to my computer. I would not have bought this album if I had not been able to download it, no sale is lost, no property goes missing.
2) I steal a CD or vinyl froim a store.
Would you say these two are equivalent?
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Hang on, I don't think this is self-evident at all.
Just to illustrate it a little bit further.
Imagine these two scenarios:
1) I download a music album to my computer. I would not have bought this album if I had not been able to download it, no sale is lost, no property goes missing.
2) I steal a CD or vinyl froim a store.
Would you say these two are equivalent?
No, I don't think those are equivalent.
How about these two?
1) I download a music album to my computer. I would not have bought this album if I had not been able to download it, no sale is lost, no property goes missing.
2) I download a music album to my computer. I would have bought this album if I had not been able to download it, a sale is lost.
What I was asking Tommy for evidence of is that 1) is occurring, not 2).
Just in case this goes astray, I'd like to make it very very clear lest things go astray I don't agree with punishing people for downloading music.
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According to some people/entities(RIAA) both are breaking the law the same as running over the homeless.
There is a tangibility issue to some extent with owning a vinyl as opposed to sound files, not just a particle/matter transfer issue. I can use my CD to put the album on as many of my computers as I want, but I can't use a legal program such as bittorrent to get it off the net? I've spent money seeing bands, and buying merch for acts I either wouldn't have even heard of, or wouldn't have bothered with had I not heard their music for free on a recommendation. I think the biggest problem is with the current copyright system that needs a modern overhaul. Unfortunately there is no pressing push for reform, and it would be opposed by all the wrong, and powerful lobbying groups.
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1) I download a music album to my computer. I would not have bought this album if I had not been able to download it, no sale is lost, no property goes missing.
No sale would be lost if you stole it from a store because the chain stores buy them off the label. Once the units are in stores, the money's already gone to the label.
Whether or not it is in physical is not irrelevant per se, but it is being a stickler for details that don't really matter. It's semantics.
I agree that the RIAA are dickheads, and that the crime people are being charged with is not strictly speaking the one they should be.
However, if a band has chosen to sell their music in a physical form, and not put it out for free on the internet, then if you download it instead, that is you being a dick, because if it was their choice to charge people to listen to it, then you should either pay for it or not listen to it. They have not chosen to put their music on the net, it is illegally copied, and whatever crime it may be semantically, it's still some sort of crime even if I can't construct what it is.
There's not really an equivalent situation that I can use as an example, because there's not really anything like it.
Also, I would argue that buying a pirate CD is worse, because not only are you not buying the CD from the artist who made it and giving that money or whatever, you're giving someone ELSE the money, which is ridiculous. I mean, how much of an asshole do you have to be to instead of giving your money to the artist whose music you like, but to a criminal instead. Where's the moral high ground in that?
...You know, aside from the one I'm standing on. Or rather, that my high horse is standing.
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http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/4206.html
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Quite a bit of research in the intervening 5 years contradicts that. Certainly not all of it, and there are millions of different questions not being addressed and things to mull over, I reckon.
Here's a paper from this year by one of the same bods. (http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/09-132.pdf) Table 5 near the back has a summary of some findings. There's all kinds of murkiness. The tenor of their paper is, unsurprisingly, positive for big name acts.
However, if a band has chosen to sell their music in a physical form, and not put it out for free on the internet, then if you download it instead, that is you being a dick, because if it was their choice to charge people to listen to it, then you should either pay for it or not listen to it. They have not chosen to put their music on the net, it is illegally copied, and whatever crime it may be semantically, it's still some sort of crime even if I can't construct what it is.
Yeah, basically this is me, as I guess I already said. Except the "illegally" bit - it being a "crime" - is not really what I think or care about. It just seems ungrateful... churlish? Heh, churlish is a pretty cool word.
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Most people in the world cannot afford such a luxury.
Oh hey, that's me.
Usually I don't say anything in these threads because Tommy is usually around to express the beliefs that I share in a more articulate manner. Anything I say is merely a purposeless reiteration of the much finer expression of others.
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Heh, when I was at high school I used to borrow CDs for free from my local library and tape the fuck out of them. I totally get that. When I had a bit more expendible income I went berzerk on buying shit.
Thanks for taking the time to lay this out, all. Very interesting.
I can relate to the dick moves... that's what it comes down to in my mind. Like singing along loudly and out of tune during quiet songs at a gig, always leaving the pub just before it's your round, breaking something and not sacking up to the fact you did it...
The increased revenue thing, to me, makes sense in the big picture, but I still see how certain kinds of people would lose out. Mostly thinking of older, poorer, or more geographically isolated people. The latter being a factor for live stuff more than merch, but maybe for both.
Also people who make anything electronic, which happens to be most of what I listen to... doesn't exactly translate to hot merch and live shows. Even if it did, really it's the recorded stuff that's worth saying "thanks" for, I guess. Still, if some kind of recompense happens indirectly, that's cool.
Tommy, I totally agree with you that this will all become irrelevant from a legal perspective.
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Also, I would argue that buying a pirate CD is worse, because not only are you not buying the CD from the artist who made it and giving that money or whatever, you're giving someone ELSE the money, which is ridiculous. I mean, how much of an asshole do you have to be to instead of giving your money to the artist whose music you like, but to a criminal instead. Where's the moral high ground in that?
This is so ridiculously close to what a major label already does.
When you buy a band's CD, they get absolutely minimal profits from it. Most actual money comes through live shows.
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True, but then the bands get even less - another reason I'd be hesitant to risk them losing any of that income.
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This is why some major record companies are now demanding to not only get a piece of the pie from touring, but to pretty much act as the manager for it.
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Heh, when I was at high school I used to borrow CDs for free from my local library and tape the fuck out of them. I totally get that.
But I'm into bands like Animal Collective, Codeine and Tortoise. My local library, or in any library in Sydney for that matter wouldn't ever have that in stock.
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Oh my point was that I made my own copies of music I wanted when I couldn't afford to buy it. The means were different, but I get why people do it.
Think of it this way. Like Alex said, artists only get maybe a buck or two here and there for the sales of the actual albums, depending on the contract they signed.
All contracts I've signed have been for 80% of profit. These were standard contracts for the labels that have released my CDs.
However, they can make a reasonable amount from touring, especially if they have the benefit of major label exposure and all the things that go with it.
What if they don't (or no longer) tour / play shows?
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I find every situation you bring up incomparable to what's happening to the music world.
In those three situations, you're naming professions that were simply outdated and became worthless. Music is still worth something to a lot of people, they're just not paying for it anymore because they know that they don't have to.
I can see the movie business taking the next hit...
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I am guessing the contracts you signed were for independent record labels, no?
Yeah, for sure. The argument that musicians don't get much income from CDs is, anecdotally, not very relevant to a lot of the music I like. It may well be true for a lot of other QCers.
On the one hand, I'm sure that sucks for them but on the other, they chose to participate in music as a method of obtaining income when realtistically, it should be a labour of love in the first place.
I understand that, but, taken to its extreme, the argument that people should be allowed access to participate in media based on how much money they have available to spend is thoroughly distasteful to me.
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I can see the movie business taking the next hit...
Wouldn't it be television? I mean, I know beyond the cost of cable/satellite and commercials it's free anyway... but with the advent of Hulu, I think that industry is going to be in need of heavy revamping too, sooner than the movies. But in terms of straight-up piracy, point taken.
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well if we want to compare piracy between different media, PC games are the most fucked over by it. I mean, how the hell else are they supposed to get income? there's no theaters, or shows, just the game. If there's online they could charge a fee but people don't like paying for a game just to get roped into a continuous payment scheme, and you can play on private servers.
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Everyone who's anyone knows that videogames are the haunts of the criminally insane and excessively violent. They lack the revelation and catharsis of real art, providing only the simplest of escapes and barely prolonging the inherent homicidal tendencies they also provoke in their players.
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I didn't really think my response through too well, other people have brought up better points and I'll go be quiet again.
Scarred, you win.
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The problem is not with the RIAA. The problem is with a legal system that cannot distinguish between somebody who casually downloads and shares songs for the purposes of exploring music, and somebody who profits from the illegal reproduction of artist's work. It cannot do this because it is based on principles of detachment and precision that do not equate to the ways that human beings actually interact in any real way.
The RIAA simply is a by-product that profits from artists who do not share Tommy's agenda of musical integrity.
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What distinguishes musical craftmanship (a song/album) from let's say a painting?
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Ease of reproduction. A painting can be copied, but there is only one the raft of the medusa. it's a little different in printmaking (etching, traditional lithography) and photography in which there can be a significant number of perfecly legitimate copies. But even here, there is a degree of differing values there as well, as an earlier print of, say, one of rembrandt's fantastic etchings will probably be worth more than one from a later edition. traditional sculpture in bronze is a weird territory as the moldmaking part of the process means multiples can be made, but there is still usually an original. In the other forms of sculpture and installation art, there is only ever one. BUT: the lion's share of a given work's audience have only ever seen it in photographs, and there may be an analog there to a recording of a song being played.
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I think the distinguishing factor is that fact that music is a concept and a painting isn't. Music is the result of things banging together and being strummed. It's also a sound that can bring about a certain reaction. None of that can ever be truly sold because it's all vibrations and nerve-endings. You can sell recorded music, but you aren't selling the music itself, only the medium. A painting is a thing. Sure the art of painting itself is a concept, but the product isn't.
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That's not universal, though. There are entire movements of art which rely on the premise of the idea or concept, being more important than its physical manifestation. For instance, Jackson pollock's paintings were not merely about how they looked, but about the persona of the male artist as an intuitive, intense and visible part of the work itself (one can look at the piece and know exactly how it was made). That's why the photographic images of him producing the work are so important. It's even more accentuated when you move out of the world of painting into conceptual art, installation art, and contemporary sculpture (see: Barry le Va, Mel Bochner, Bruce Nauman,etc.). Granted, there is still a physical form which carries the idea, but that's exactly what a record, tape or CD does, albeit in a stadardized form. But yeah, you are right, there certainly is a difference there too. Like you said, music is intangible, but a painting is, even if the idea it supports is not so physical. Hmmmm- What level of tangibility do you guys think a digital file, say, an mp3 file, has?
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Sorry just read back and noticed this:
If I'm buying an actual CD or vinyl or DVD or whatever, it's presumably because of the artwork and packaging is in some way desirable.
Tommy is so punk he only buys music based on it's aesthetic appeal
You are a good man and your broader opinions are fucking solid, Tommy, but sometimes you just have the worst ways of expressing them.
Personally I think that the tangibility of the mp3 file is virtually non-existent, and therefore don't pay for them, since they are easily replicated from existing tangible mediums I already have.
However I just don't think that is a good standard by which to carry this argument. Intangible doesn't mean "not real" and painted art is not any more "real" to me. I haven't ever wept at a painting but I've sure as hell had a record do it to me. Arguing about the tangibility of the format suggests a "superior" format (vinyl, mp3, etc) when really they're aimed at entirely different types of music listeners. This obsession with the physical form a piece of art takes, rather than the emotions it inspires in you seems counter-intuitive to what the whole point of art is to me, basically is what I am saying here.
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In the grand scheme of things, the idea of recorded music as a method of generating money is a brief and passing phase in the history of music. Soon it will be gone and rightly so. It's an insane concept.
How about books? All you gotta do is type that shit up, bam, book on the internet.
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(http://img235.imageshack.us/img235/9311/autauxbm5ea11f09b8576e6.gif)
It already happened to porn, it's now gonna happen to other kinds of media as well.
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Not exactly parallel cases, man, the overwhelming majority of internet porn is complete shit. I don't want music to run the same course.
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The overwhelming majority of music is already shit, we just have a harder time finding most of it. At least, unless you go on myspace.
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I totally came in here with the intent of my first post in months to bring up the visual art connection. Looking at an image of visual art is akin to listening to an MP3. But anyway that point was already made, so I will move on to my next one.
This topic is originally about illegality and money. So lets target the illegality first, having a third-party bureaucracy sue on behalf of artists is indefensible. And convicting very few people for something as common as jay-walking (which is also ineffectually illegal) is pointless.
Next up, money. These people being sued on behalf of are artists. Art is a hobby, it happens to be a hobby you can make money out of but it shouldn't be the primary motivation. Its a hobby that often very much forms a lifestyle, that lifestyle should revolve around performing their performance art. It seems at some point a businessman discovered it was profitable to sell recorded imitations of a performance art and started a record label, somewhere along the lines it became not only accepted, but expected that people can and will pay for these recorded imitations of a performance art. Now we the people have decided that since we dont have to pay for these recorded imitations of art, so we wont pay for them.
That being said, we are still able to go watch shows, and if we want a collection (collecting is also a hobby) of said art, we can still by the vinyl or CDs. The delivering of music is facing a sea-change, and the law and the RIAA enforcing it are going to have to adapt, because they simply cant sue there way through it.
And no side has really bothered to take a stance on other parties playing their music collections for other people. Since this whole argument revolves around the fact that the music is intangible, what about people who listen to music at clubs? If a DJ is getting paid to play other peoples music, is the only distinction being the listeners dont get to choose what they hear? So does that make the act of choosing what you are listening to/playing the determining factor on whether or not you should pay for it? Not the act of possession or actual listening?
Bottom line is, as much as I respect DynamiteKid's opinions on this, it has to be Tommy whose opinions I back.
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And no side has really bothered to take a stance on other parties playing their music collections for other people.
Really? (http://www.prsformusic.com/users/businessesandliveevents/musicforbusinesses/Pages/doineedalicence.aspx) (I don't know what the US equivalent would be, if any.)
Note that the free use of music at home is (the way I read it) a discretionary exemption.
Offices where music from a radio, for instance, is audible are expected to have licences, and these are chased up to some extent.
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So its both illegal to own unlawfully acquired digital imitations of said performance art as well as to publicly play lawfully acquired imitations?
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Or to have people perform copyrighted material live for the public. Technically, I should have had a music license for my old home since we had acoustic gigs in my living room a couple of times.
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Music is crazy. It is illegal to perform someone else's song live. It is illegal to play an acoustic guitar in the park, as it is considered a live performance and you need a permit for it (and I was almost arrested for it, seriously).
As for the whole album artwork thing, that doesn't make sense to me. I download the album artwork, too.