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Topic: Piracy. Theft or not? (Read 27629 times) previous topic - next topic
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Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #175 –
Just for the record (pun? ) as a reference, i hereby present the views of An Artist, in case somebody reading these lines haven't read these before.

THE INTERNET DEBACLE - AN ALTERNATIVE VIEW

FALLOUT - a follow up to The Internet Debacle


You may be suprised what an Artist feels when he/she finds a rare piece of his/her work he/she couldn't find for years from any other place.

Times are changing...
She is waiting in the air

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #176 –
Quote
Quote
Unlike P2P, there you get an exact copy of the CD

I never managed to get an error free extraction from the few library CD that were in a state good enough to be recognized in my drives 

Heh. That's why you lie, and order out even if they are said to be there 

I remember only having one CD, that was bad actually. Two skips, and EAC fixed them up quite nicely. I don't remember if I had C2 on or not and the percentage, but the skips aren't there when I play it now. CD wipes work nicely unless the person last had used a pin on the CD or something...

DVDs, are another story entirely. CDs are probably not thaqt scratched, since in this day and age, in NY city, I doubt many step foot in a library for anything compared to blockbuster 

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #177 –
I feel artists should have control over downloads/file sharing.  That said,  these artiists
having control would find that the "sweet spot" for them would be to allow downloads
of some of their tracks, so potential customers can sample, but must buy the album
to get it all.

In fact, one of the CD's I bought  on my last trip to the store was the Nora Jones CD
even though I had already downloaded several of the tracks in fairly high bit rate mp3
from the publisher's web site, bluenote.com (nice that they used >128 kb/s).

Some folks say all the music should be free, and the artist can make money off T-shirts etc,
but I'm sure you can find plenty of T-shirt pirates who would say the opposite.
(self serving philosophy)

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #178 –
My problem is that most of the music I want doesn't have a CD. I like a lot of independent music, and the best electronic I've ever heard( http://gtonic.dmusic.com ), doesn't have a CD. He did use 160k on all tracks and 224k on one though, but most of it is 128k. I rarely do download, but I do a lot of sharing.

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #180 –
Quote
getting back to he topic:
piracy is always theft, piracy is always illegal.

I allow me to disagree with you: under piracy I definitely understand somebody (or group of people) makes illegal profit from the art-work of the artist(s) whereas copy for my own purposes doesn't harm anybody. If I should have not such a possibility, I would rather leave it alone and maybe would never know, if the music (in the cases we talk about) is worth our money or not. And it's quite normal I own some original CDs from an artist and some material I have is either as lossy compression or on CDR. Because not everything is equal good for me (and definitely for everybody else, too). That doesn't mean I am a thief. Another thing is when somebody has everything in form of lossy compression or CDR. That's surely something we should all refuse as illegal.

And a musician should not definitely live from the CDs he sells (and to be honest, I don't believe a lot of musicians/performers could live from the CDs or any other medias they sell), the music should be performed live and the live performances should make him a substantial part of his earnings. The same goes for every possible genre of music.

Just my another 2 cents...

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #181 –
Quote
And a musician should not definitely live from the CDs he sells (and to be honest, I don't believe a lot of musicians/performers could live from the CDs or any other medias they sell), the music should be performed live and the live performances should make him a substantial part of his earnings. The same goes for every possible genre of music.

What about an artist who performs every part in the music.  The performance ONLY exists as
as a product of combining separate parts in the studio and can not be performed live.

You view seems to boil down to: "The artist shouldn't plan on making money on something I
plan on stealing" 

That may have a certain practicality, but that doesn't make it right.

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #182 –
Here's a twist for the debate.  Legality aside, what about downloading/sharing material which is no longer
in producton?    If you can't buy it then there is no argument that the (possibly dead) artist is losing
income from your download.

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #183 –
Quote
Quote
P.S. If you buy a CD which is intollerabley mastered - take it back! I have. I haven't seen my one-man-stand against over compresion having a significant effect on the mastering world at yet, but give it time... 

I am afraid, it would lead to nothing...

Yes, I know ;-) - 'twas sarcasm - the lowest form of wit, but one that I'm quite fond of.

Cheers,
David.

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #184 –
Quote
Here's a twist for the debate.   Legality aside, what about downloading/sharing material which is no longer
in producton?    If you can't buy it then there is no argument that the (possibly dead) artist is losing
income from your download.

In the UK, all recordings issued before the beginning of the year 50 years ago are out of mechanical copyright.

There is usually still publishing copyright in existance on the recorded work, since this lasts seventy years after the author's death (who comes up with these ideas?!?).

About 4-6% of the price of CDs containing re-issues of old recordings goes to pay these publishing royalties. At around 2 pence per song (typically) I would be happy to pay this price for downloading the recording off the net, if a mechanism were in place to handle the payment.

This is a serious suggestion, and I've often thought about setting up such a scheme - the amount of vintage material that's shared on p2p is impressive, and to be able to have legal p2p at such a small cost would be an interesting proposition - even if you will have to wait 50 years to download Britney :-) Actually, that could be a selling point...


Unfortunately, mechanical copyright lasts longer in the USA - but there's nothing to stop a UK company operating this service on the internet to allow customers from the USA to import the tracks from the UK, as long as they meet UK copyright law. A track never issued in the UK, or issued for the first time after 1952, is not "out of mechanical copyright" in the UK, and cannot be traded by anyone other than the original rights holder.


Cheers,
David.

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #185 –
Quote
Unfortunately, mechanical copyright lasts longer in the USA -

In the US the constitution say copyright will be in force for a limited time.
The length has been exteded a few times.  Now the practical criterion
seems to be that as long as Disney keeps up the campaign contributions,
"Steamboat Willly" (the first Mickey Mouse cartoon) will NEVER go out of
copyright.  The current length is 95 years.

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #186 –
Quote
And a musician should not definitely live from the CDs he sells

And... who are you to decide what a musician must live off? If someone is musically gifted, and enough people enjoy their music, well they should reap the rewards. In the same vein, why are we paying athletes more than surgeons?

Quote
Legality aside, what about downloading/sharing material which is no longer in producton?

Well, the thing is that under the current "way of doing things" the musicians don't "own" their music. The musician is just an employee of the company, which is the actual owner of the music.

In the world of books, the author is the one that usually owns his or her own writtings. Then the tables are reversed and the publisher is the author's employee. They market and distribute the book, keep a cut themseleves and gives a cut to the author.

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #188 –
Quote
piracy == theft == illegal.. can't get passed that.

If the copyright is extended on an already existing work isn't that  stealing my
scheduled unfettered access to that piece?

edit: since congress is doing it, it probably technically isn't stealing since it is legal, but
it is a government "taking" which by law should be compensated at a fair value.

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #189 –
Lol MTRH, you have such an open mind, it makes for such detailed discussion

I've read probably 4 pages now, I'm slowly reading through this in a random order, it's an interesting subject for me at least.  I've made 2 albums of my own as music has been a hobby of mine, both listening and creating.  I haven't sold a single album, but the friends I have passed cd's or uploaded tracks to have enjoyed some of my stuff - so I guess I could gain at least some sales.

I plan on offering all my songs available for download at a listanable quality..  it's the cheapest form of advertising I know of, and from what I was taught, getting your name around is more important than making a sale.  If someone doesn't buy my cd because they got all the files from the net, yes I'd be unhappy (as I'd be ~$6 poorer for it, having no record boss as my keeper) - but they will at least of heard of me, and be a possible source of recommendation to others.

This 'philosiphy' came from a professional hard-house dj in the US, and a creative musician with 4 albums to his name..  both small time on the scheme of things, but huge compared to me.  The DJ's cd's all explicitly contain the message "Please copy this cd and pass it to all your friends", and the creative guy paid his mp3.com prices to send me 2 albums free - just because I talked with him about his music and starting to make my own.


Because of this I don't see downloading as such a crime.  I avoid it when I respect the artists work on the whole.  An album with >50% tracks I love or at least enjoy, I'll buy it.  If it's less I will borrow and copy, or download as a last resort.

Thanks to this thread, I'll be checking out my local libraries..  I knew they had cd's, but never thought about it in relation to expanding my music collection...  or more rather, replacing mp3's with ape's, which is something I'd like to do
< w o g o n e . c o m / l o l >

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #190 –
Quote
piracy == theft == illegal.. can't get passed that.


MTRH is sticking to the topic which is "Piracy. Theft or not?"  Other arguments, really, don't apply.

Later.
"Did you just say he contacts you through a bird? Did I just hear you say that?" Sonny Valerio (Cliff Gorman). Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai.

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #191 –
MTRH, don't you love the people who complain about the government this, the government that & then when confronted with the evils of what they do, immediately hide behind a million statutes, laws & forms of double-speak created by the very government which they complain against?  I said it a two pages ago as well, maybe my font size was not large enough so here it is again in larger font,



[span style='font-size:21pt;line-height:100%']IF PIRACY WERE NOT THEFT IT WOULD BE CALLED SOMETHING ELSE. To ask the question is not academic, but rather evidence of a weak grasp on the english language and a weak moral foundation.[/span]

Jeff

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #192 –
Quote
... a weak moral foundation.
                                                                  Jeff

As a music lover and fair man (I'd rather use the word "gentleman" but I am not sure  ) I would like to own everything I like listen to. But this is not possible from various reasons - you have no possibility to buy only the track you like  or just a part of an album... Besides, there's quite another situation nowadays than it used to be, say, in 70's. Then I could afford to own all Black Sabbath, Led Zep, Deep Purple, King Crimson, Jethro Tull, Santana or Uriah Heep albums. Since the mid-80's you have no easy chance to orient yourself in the music market, it is just too huge and complex. You should be given an opportunity for "try before you buy". I am the owner of approx. 5000 LPs and cca 1300 CDs and I will always pay for the music I want to have. But the music shouldn't be really assumed just as any other commodity... It's definitely not, no kind of art is just plain goods. It's more than this. Again I must repeat myself - who has the music for his own purposes, i.e. for private listening, makes really no crime. See this and this
http://www.janisian.com/article-internet_debacle.html
http://www.janisian.com/article-fallout.html
I think in the long run most people buy for themselves the music they really like.
Just my another 2 cents.

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #193 –
I just wanted to add a remark regarding the opinion about file sharing as good PR for the artist that has been expressed by more than one poster.

Whether free copying and distribution could be of good for some artists or not is not relevant when discussing the copyright laws. They are there to ensure that creating artists are entitled of some basic power over their work. There are in fact not many artists at all who does support free copying and sharing of their music.

And it's rather selfish of some to state (as has been doen in this thread) that you have the right to do what you want with the music, since - as a form of art - it should belong to everybody. Again, ask the artist in question what he/she thinks about it. Their wishes should be respected, regardless if it happens to be an artist you don't particularly like.

The whole 'try before you buy' thinking is flawed. If you're curious, buy the record. Noone forces you to do it. You have no legitimate right to try it out. You can't try underwear either, you know!

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #194 –
Quote
The whole 'try before you buy' thinking is flawed. If you're curious, buy the record. Noone forces you to do it. You have no legitimate right to try it out. You can't try underwear either, you know!

That analogy is flawed in that you can buy 10 sets of the underwear you like and get 10x the use, but
in general people would never buy more than 1 copy of the same CD. 

"Try before you buy" for popular music can be accomplished by radio, or CD stores that have
demo stations.  For more exotic fare, the "try before you buy" proponents should ask themselves if
they delete pirated tracks after deciding they don't like them enough to buy.

The RIAA propaganda (including threat letters to universities and corprations) does not
acknowledge that legal  music downloads  exist, and they don't want to admit to themselves
that people like me are spending more of our music money with artists and publishers that allow
sample track downloads.  For me, maybe 3/4 of the CD's I've bought in the last 4 years have come
after legally downloading at least one track.

Like cerial makers, they would really prefer that we just swallow a certain amount of crap that we buy
because of the packaging without really knowing what's inside.

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #195 –
Quote
Here's a twist for the debate.   Legality aside, what about downloading/sharing material which is no longer
in producton?    If you can't buy it then there is no argument that the (possibly dead) artist is losing
income from your download.

Personally I have no qualms about this. If the music is out of print, and very very hard/expensive to track down that is.
I once asked an artist (Matthew Good) about his stance on sharing/copying an EP of his that was out of print, selling for $150+ (american dollars) on Ebay, not going to be repressed and generally impossible to find.
His answer was that sharing/copying that EP for non-profit was fine by him since no plans of repressing it was considered.

Bootlegs is harder to answer. There is no financial loss for the artist to be considered by sharing bootlegs, but by spreading bootlegs against the artists will, I would be disrespecting him/her. Dilemma.

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #196 –
Quote
For more exotic fare, the "try before you buy" proponents should ask themselves if
they delete pirated tracks after deciding they don't like them enough to buy.

I don't know how others behave, but for my part I just can say I have no reason to store any music I do not want to listen to... I repeat myself like broken vinyl record, but I must stress I see anything wrong when I own for instance 12 original CDs from Jethro Tull and besides have 4 CDRs and approx. 20 tracks as MP3s (Jethros and Ian Anderson personally, because he is the Jethro Tull, can see it from another point of view...). I do not think the artists would suffer because of this  When the ratio approx. 6:4 or better is achieved, nobody should complain about the matter.
Just my another 2 cents...

P.S. If the great companies would stop to pay exaggerated money their artists, like Robbie Williams with his 60 million contract, that would be even better. This is the main reason we must pay horrible amounts for the music these days...

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #197 –
Quote
For more exotic fare, the "try before you buy" proponents should ask themselves if
they delete pirated tracks after deciding they don't like them enough to buy.

If you believe that word of mouth is a good thing, then deleting pirated tracks and removing them from your file sharing program of choice is a actually a bad thing. The tracks wouldn't have the opportunity to spread and reach someone willing to pay for them after checking them out.

As far as the "try before you buy" rationale. If it's possible to try before you buy, people will do it. Test driving cars, buying clothes then returning them, taking a couple of swings with a baseball bat ... The problem is that most digital music has no natural limitation like the above options. That makes it difficult for the music releaser to control what happens to it.

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #199 –
Piracy does equal theft and it is unethical.

However, how do you define piracy?

Is it piracy for someone to download the only good Led Zeppelin song when there is no alternative, like a reasonably priced CD single?

Is it piracy to make someone pay $15 dollars for  7 piece of crap "songs"? Or if you prefer $15 dollars of one song?

Is it piracy to make a series of four CD "singles" that cost $12 like metallica (and others) did? The same studio recording on all four with two to three live songs?

Is it piracy to make a person pay for Vinyl, and after finding out the vinyl was crap, to buy the tapes so that he could hear the songs without record noise?
And then make them buy CD's, then "remastered in 22 bit", make them buy CD's "remastered at 24bit".  Allowing an ignorant public to believe that remastering will magically make the sound better?

Now they want them to buy audio DVDs, and I am sure that most of the listening public will truly benefit from the extra resolution.


One rants more, and I will stop.

If someone genuinely does not like an album after giving it a chance,  can this person return it?  Or does the record company and artist still get to keep the money, while the buyer has to suck it up?
No, because they *might* have made a copy.