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Not to say that a company shouldn't be able to profit from the fruits of its labor but it seems to me that all these record companies want to do is put their greedy little fingers in everybody else's pie and wring out every last cent they possibly can. They seem to have no sense of style, nor do they seem to have anybody's best interest in mind but their own. They continue to put out product but whine when they don't make windfall profits. (Sound familiar, doesn't it?)

Sometimes I think people (companies) need to stop and think for a moment. They need to quit thinking about the short-term penny pinching and think about the long-term dollar.

Napster = Theft

I mean, you hear all these rationalizations from people who *know* that they are taking something that doesn't belong to them. What's the word for that? And what's the difference why they wouldn't do the same thing at Wal Mart? They'll get caught at Wal Mart. Narrow self-interest, greed & fear, are your basic motivators here.

I think nasty .mp* 's are one of the wonderful tools to explain to folks why digital does not mean better quality. It's the format that makes the difference, not just digital.

Vinyl LP = analog
RealAudio = digital

Which sounds better, class?

Music companies are berated for "wanting to make a profit." Folks: EVERY COMPANY IN THE WORLD wants to make a profit. This is not a sin...this is business. As Elton John once said: "I really don't think my music is that good, but as long as people buy it, I'm certainly willing to give it to them." (This was in Rolling Stone sometime in the '70s.)

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You download a song to listen to. Because you downloaded it, you do not buy the CD. However if you had never downloaded it you would have never bought the CD anyway. It is foolish to assume that for every MP3 downloaded, a CD would have been sold.

-Copyright Violation? Yes.
-Ethical? Hmmmmm.
-Lost Revenue? Nope.

Or another situation that Scott talked about:
You download an MP3 of something that you really never heard of before, or had not heard much about. You like it so much that you buy the CD.

-Copyright Violation? They can bite my ass on this one.
-Ethical? Hell yeah!
-Lost Revenue? Hell no. In fact, that's more revenue than they would have had without the MP3 to download.

What if that song sucked, you do not buy the CD and delete the file (why would anyone keep a file of a bad song)?

-Copyright Violation? Again, they can bite my unshaved ass.
-Ethical? You bet.
-Lost Revenue? Possibly. But only because their song sucked.

What about all of these new MP3 players that the big companies (like Sony, who owns several studios) put out? They aren't exactly saying "don't pirate music". They're just saying "play hundreds of your MP3's on our equipment". The whole MP3 issue really is a grey issue unto itself. I agree that stealing is bad, but in many cases MP3 has made people money. I have purchased CDs after downloading MP3s. I refuse to listen to the radio because
A) Radio sucks (unless you really like hearing those "really cool" DJs banter amongst themselves!)
B) They don't play what you want when you want to hear it. Not a good way to try out specific music.

MP3 is better than radio.

For instance, I downloaded all the tracks to James Horner's Vibes soundtrack. It is not available at stores and was a Varese Sarabande Club Member Exclusive release. Now the CD is worth about $130.00. I also downloaded tracks to Basil Pourdouris' Cherry 2000 which is estimated to be worth $250.00. For awhile Jerry Goldsmith's complete score to Mulan (about 30 cues, no songs) was only available if you were a member of the Academy and received a promo. And for awhile, the promos were being sold for about $450.00. Then the bootleg sells began and depreciated the value to a mere $200.00 I believe.

I bought a promo of Apollo 13 which has about 60 minutes of the score (none of the songs, and no f**king dialogue either) for about $47.00 after shipping and handling, and I lucked out on that because the retail is about $65.00! I and a friend of mine split $100.00 for a copy of Michael Kamen's Die Hard (again, a promo) on an E-Bay auction, and it's retailed at about $75.00 normally but has been sold on E-Bay for as high as $120. I was thrilled to have them (I still am), but then I saw these scores being swapped around on Napster, and I'm not buying these scores to collect so much as to listen to because I love symphonic music. So I felt a little gypped because I wasted $97.00 for those two examples (and those aren't the only promos I have) and none of that went to the orginal artist or any of the album's producers. Granted they are promos and the quality is better than they would be as MP3s (not to mention the CDs are glitch free), but they were still promos. Promos I might add, that said FOR PROMOTIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. NOT LICENSED FOR SALE. Just like all promos. But I paid for them anyway before I thought to check Napster. On occasion Film Score Monthly puts out re-releases, expanded releases, or even previously unreleased soundtracks as does Varese Sarabande and Intrada, but the number of copies is usually limited to around 3,000 and they sell at a reasonable price of about $17.00 to $20.00 if you buy the title within a year. I don't mind at all shelling out $20.00 or even $30.00 bucks for a rare soundtrack, but when you start to get into the triple digits, I think that's bullshit myself.

And then there's the bootlegs floating around out there. A complete 2 CD set of David Arnold's Independence Day sells for about $45.00 and again none of the profit goes to the original artist or the music industry. I'm told that bootleg is actually of superior quality, and it has every note of music from the movie (yes, I am that hungry to have every note from the composition on some of these soundtracks. It's ludicrous, I know.) and there was some damn good music cut from the 50+ min commercial release. Some of these bootlegs are of good quality while others are just shit. If I'd paid $50.00 for Elmer Bernstein's Ghostbusters on E-Bay instead of downloading the MP3s from another user, I would have been pissed because the MP3s were shit, and for comparsion I downloaded a file from the same user of a track from a promo I had and knew to be of fine quality and that MP3 sounded so much better even though the bitrate for it and the Ghostbusters MP3s was the same, so I know that Ghostbusters bootleg had to be shitty quality.

I know that a bulk of the Napster files out there were of material available at any store for $12 to $17, and that's why I made it a point not to download material available, but I grabbed a shitload of rare scores. True, they don't have as much quality as an original CD, but it doesn't diminish the listening experience for me any less. And now that Napster is gone do you guys think I'd be too whiney if I bitched about not being able to lift off the rest of the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade complete score?

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The man with the magic hands.

If it isn't yours, & you take it without buying it, it's theft.

The person who owns it or does the work decides how he will sell the product. Any other acquisition is illegal.

Okay, you've suddenly decided that you won't buy something until you've tried it out for a while first.

So you just go over to Mark Gulbrandsen's, help yourself to a Century projector & sound head he's rebuilt, & take it home. You tell him you're going to use it for a while, you don't know how long, & then decide if you want to pay him for it. Or, maybe, later you'll bring it back & not pay him. Depends.

Mark, of course, will say "Hey, I didn't say you could do that with my stuff". Then, he should get a gun & shoot you as a thief as you walk out the door with his property. He has done the work, he owns the product. He will tell you how you can acquire it from him. It many not even be for sale.

The only difference with Napster is that folks don't feel like they're going to get caught, so they do what they want & rationalize their behavior to themselves & others.

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The man with the magic hands.

I would never steal one of Mark Gulbrandsen's Centurys. No way. I'd want it to work! I'd have to steal it from someone else.

And that being the case Joe, what if I told you I could get you a copy of Mark's Century for free?

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The man with the magic hands.

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