Also, as others have mentioned, there are legitimate reasons to transfer MP3 and other files and many of us would be up in arms if there were any attempt to restrict the transfer of file types which have legitimate uses.

Copy protection isn't an answer, either. It does nothing but harm legitimate consumers and take away "fair use" rights, while doing nothing to stop the big-time pirates.

I do however feel that music CDs are overpriced compared to DVDs and would have to think twice about spending up to $18.00 for a soundtrack CD album such as "DANTE'S PEAK" when I can buy the actual movie on DVD for approximately $2.00 more at discount stores with the entire music score on a isolated track.

-Claude

I really don't think this is true on the level of a major label. The "little artist that sells little" on one of the majors is getting screwed by the label to the point that the number of downloads will not effect the check that eventually (or often never) shows up at their door. Major labels work so much {production costs, manufacturing costs, video production costs, legal fees, and so on) into the "cost" that an artist must recoup that an artist has to sell (almost literally) over a million copies of an album to actually make money on their record.

Small bands on independent labels and even moreso the independent labels themselves are the ones most being hurt by downloads. Their costs are higher, their sales are lower, and every sale counts.

As Dave also mentioned, it is typically the biggest artists heard complaining about music downloads. He is correct there, and I find that almost laughable. If Metallica and the like really feel like they are being robbed by the people downloading their music (but often still buying tickets to their concerts and paying $30 for a t-shirt), they need to take a closer look at how much they are being "robbed" by their record label.

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There must be a litmus test to find out if there is harm done a particular artist. the percentage of download must equal a percentage that exceeds a certain number before harm is equated, or the number of downloads must exceed a number depending on how many copies sold.

For instance..

ALBUM SALES... 20 thousand
DOWNLOADS..... 2 thousand

There is significant harm.

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Not necessarily ...

You don't know if those downloads:

1) Were discarded or never listened to again (Hey, this track sucks! <delete> )
2) Replaced a sale (Whohoo, free stuff! I'm cheap!)
3) Didn't replace a sale (I'm broke, but I'm in college, so I have high speed internet access to my dorm room. I'll spend the evening on Napster)
3) Triggered a sale (Hey, I like this! Now I know what album to look for next time I'm at the mall)
4) Triggered a later purchase (Hey, I've heard this band -- I downloaded some of their tracks and liked them -- oh look, they have another album. I'll buy that one.)
5) Triggered a concert ticket purchase. (That song I downloaded and liked -- the band is playing this weekend. Let's go!)
6) Triggered word-of-mouth promotion. (Hey, check out this song I downloaded - cool, eh?)

No one really knows the effect of file-sharing on record sales. The only real data point out there is that the music industry was seeing record sales while Napster was running, and has been in a tailspin ever since Napster was shut down. So perhaps file-sharing isn't quite as destructive as the RIAA would have people believe.

The RIAA is just making the same kind of stink it did in the past about things like cassette tape. 10 or 20 years from now, it may come to pass the record industry will reap many billions of dollars as it did from pre-recorded cassettes.

But if ClearChannel radio winds up owning every radio station in the country and the only way new music gets played is via payola, then the Internet will be the only way to find any decent, new stuff.

There - they are all destroyed now. I ran over them with my car before I threw them out.

After this talk, I have definately changed my opinion of what is wrong and what really could be done.

The major problem is not with downloads, but with the ease of copying and the affordability of blank cd's.

Now you can get MP3 portable players, dvd units with mp3, car cd players with mp3, etc. This is making it easier to listen to these illgotten downloads whereever you go.

Although he admits it amounts to price fixing, his suggestion is this; put a VAT at the manufacturer level, per cd, to be distributed to artists, much like ASCAP would do. Keep the VAT so high that it becomes prohibitive to use the discs to have portable copies of cd's, that you did not pay for.

Also, ban the use of MP3 decoding on portable machines. Yes there is a big market right now, but imagine if there was a market for a special tool kit that let you steal any car. That would piss a lot of people off, and you think that would be illegal. I think that the portable MP3 players should either be so expensive that they become prohibitive, or they should not be out there.

Yes, I am aware that you have a right to make a backup copy of your own liscenced music, and you should be able to take it anywhere you want in any form, as long as you own the liscense. This is the only real quandry, but hey, we have to do something. Mass prosecutions is not the answer.

Emassing illegal music from computer to computer is not the problem, it is the ease of copying cd's, transfering them over the internet, and making a whole new cd somewhere else, for someone else, without the benefit of the artist getting his fair due.

If we ban the further production of MP3 Decoding on portable devices of any kind, other than on a computer, then the only option left is to transfer your files to a blank CD, which would then cost more than the full price CD, encouraging the purchase of the original.

There are millions of MP3 Devices out there now. Not everyone has them yet. The ones out there will not last forever. This is something that would have to be done sooner rather than later.

I have seen that APPLE has one that holds 2000 songs. Now really, this is piracy at its best, and the big boys are getting thier hands as dirty as the downloaders. The big companies making millions of dollars on mp3 portables are HELPING this problem get bigger. They must share in this burden of responsibility. Perhaps limit the amount of music that can be downloaded, and perhaps make it so these portables can only provide an analog or degraded output, no direct digital stream out, just in. Maybe even a time limit. Who knows.

As far as overpricing blank cd's, it is done on the AUDIO cd's, meant for stand alone cd copiers. They have a built in VAT to distribute to ASCAP already, so it can be done. Yes there are many data applications used on blank cd's, but businesses that use them would have to factor that in, and plan on the increase of cost, and perhaps go to rewritables or use zip disks instead.

There are many possibilities, and correct that just stopping the transfer of any type of file is hard enough. Complicated filters can catch a file even if it has its extention renamed, but still, it really is not the answer.

I would love the industry to have a nice big website with all thier stuff for sale, how about 50 cents a download. maybe more or less, perhaps catalog songs for less, between 10 cents and 25 cents, newer songs for two bucks or so. Discount if you buy the whole damn album.

That would be sweet, but the RIAA wants to protect its distribution points with these damn cd's. AAAAUGH. Too costly.

I throw my hands up in the air. There are so many different opinions out there, and it doesn't seem that any two match up. SO I GIVE UP, besides, I really don't care anymore. My brain hurts.

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Now you can get MP3 portable players, dvd units with mp3, car cd players with mp3, etc. This is making it easier to listen to these illgotten downloads whereever you go.

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MP3 players also make it easier to listen to CDs that you have paid for, or music that you have created yourself. Lots of people do that also.

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Although he admits it amounts to price fixing, his suggestion is this; put a VAT at the manufacturer level, per cd, to be distributed to artists, much like ASCAP would do.Keep the VAT so high that it becomes prohibitive to use the discs to have portable copies of cd's, that you did not pay for.

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That destroys the ability of unsigned musicians to record and distribute their own work, including demo recordings, live concert recordings, and small production runs for sale to the public.

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Also, ban the use of MP3 decoding on portable machines. Yes there is a big market right now, but imagine if there was a market for a special tool kit that let you steal any car. That would piss a lot of people off, and you think that would be illegal. I think that the portable MP3 players should either be so expensive that they become prohibitive, or they should not be out there.

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MP3 isn't a "pirate" format -- it's an internet-friendly format. Lots of people distribute their own recordings, or artist-authorized recordings, over the internet. Sites like MP3.com are loaded with millions of MP3 recordings, made available with the full consent and blessings of thousands of unknown and independant musicians. Your proposal would destroy their ability to publish their work, and destroy the ability of people to listen to their work.

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I would love the industry to have a nice big website with all their stuff for sale, how about 50 cents a download. maybe more or less, perhaps catalog songs for less, between 10 cents and 25 cents, newer songs for two bucks or so. Discount if you buy the whole damn album.

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Personally, I could care less about downloading Eric Clapton songs from some "industry" website. If I want an Eric Clapton album, I'm perfectly happy to buy it at the record store. However, I will point out that this proposal is mutually exclusive with your proposal to destroy the market for MP3 players. If MP3 players were illegal or prohibitively expensive, why on earth would I pay money to download songs in MP3 format?

What about people like myself -- people whose musical world consists largely of non-RIAA-marketed recordings? Although I have a large library of several hundred commercial CDs, the vast majority of my recorded CDRs are live concert recordings, of bands like the Grateful Dead, Phish, Yonder Mountain String Band, and easily over a hundred lesser known bands, all of who permit and often actively encourage audience taping and non-commercial distribution of recordings of their performance, either for commercial purposes -- to gain exposure and make their money on concert tickets and future album sales -- or purely as a gesture of respect and generosity to their fans.

What about people like my DJ friends, who take bits and pieces of existing songs and remix them into brand new creations. That would all have to stop completely if having the ability to create and distribute music outside of the RIAA manufacturing structure were to be sacrificed to prevent copying of commercial music.

Under your proposals, how would you feel about paying a $20.00 tax to the RIAA for a blank CDR so you could record your daughter's piano recital?

There's a LOT more to the world of music than the RIAA and their mass-market, lowest-common-denominator, commercial releases.

One more thing ...

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I sat down today for about two hours and had a talk with a good friend of mine who runs a used CD outlet.

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I find it ironic that your friend is so concerned about artists receiving royalties that he is willing to destroy the entire world of non-RIAA music to prevent even the smallest amount of non-royalty-paying copying, when he is in the BUSINESS of selling music without paying royalties to artists! Artists don't get royalties on used CDs.

Now if only the record industry would pay attention to the movie industry. If you price things affordably, people WILL buy the originals. The point has already been made here that the soundtrack to a movie often costs less than the movie itself to own. That is ridiculous. CDs need to have their prices lowered to under $10. Bring them back to the price range of LPs at around $7-8 and a lot of this bootlegging will go away on it's own and in the end, the record companies and artists will make MORE money. Sure each individual sale is less of a profit, but it's the quantity sold that makes the difference.

The other thing I've always felt was ridiculous is that I can go buy a DVD for $20 of a 100 million dollar production. However that same $20 spent on ANY cd release ever made comes nowhere close to the money spent to produce the recording. Why do record labels feel they are entitled to more of a profit?

Taxing CD-R blanks creates other problems: first, there are plenty of legitimate uses for blank CD-Rs (data storage, anyone?). Second, how should the taxes be distributed to mucisians? Should they just go to RIAA member companies (like the failed DAT tax)? That's blatantly unfair to those who don't choose to join. Should some random garage band get the same amount as Eminem? Again, that wouldn't be fair.

I never said I had all the answers. If you got better ones, lets hear em.

Brad has the only good one,

LOWER THE DAMN CD PRICES... nine bucks would make me want to buy.

Everyone else can bite my bum

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Brad has the only good one,

LOWER THE DAMN CD PRICES... nine bucks would make me want to buy.

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This isn't really all that good.

How can you expect to buy CDs for LESS than an LP record album used to cost back in the 80s? The list price for records, at their peak, was $9.98. That was close to TWENTY YEARS AGO. Has no one heard of inflation?

Everything costs more now. Studio time, advertising, shipping, building construction, instruments, gas, hotel rentals, royalties, hookers, booze, payola, etc. all cost more. And, even though the LIST price of a current popular CD is $18.98, I'm sorry, but if you are spending more than $15 on it, you are not shopping very well. Most new stuff can be had for $11 to $13, if you look around.

Besides, pricing the CDs lower WILL NOT stop piracy any more than a nice, low-priced, 50-cents-a-song website would. People can now download music FOR FREE. Why should they all of a sudden say "Oh, I can buy Britney Spears' new disk for $9, I guess I won't download it FOR FREE, I'll buy it instead." It will NEVER HAPPEN.

Do you think that if every theatre had a back door where people could walk in for free, without risk of getting caught, that they would suddenly start lining up to pay if the movies suddenly cost $2.00 instead of eight? Maybe some rich people who didn't care about money, and a few people with morals, and some lazy people who didn't want to bother to walk to the back door would, but the rest would still walk in free and save the two bucks. And they would carry in their own cheaper sodas, too.

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No "encryption" will ever work either, not as long as there are analog signals coming out of a line-out jack somewhere.

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And don't forget that if analog line-outs become illegal, that speakers are analog devices, so you could always tap into the wires at the speakers. I wonder if someday it will be illegal to make or sell an analog recording device.