Then kindly explain how 'NSYNC's (I know a bad group to illustrate with but the facts use them as the example) second-to-last album even though it was available on Napster almost a month previous to its street date was one of, if not *the* biggest selling album of that year???

>>I wonder if someday it will be illegal to make or sell an analog recording device.<<

Already been tried, unsuccessfully, (the Betamax case, and the hysteria the recording industry tried to pull with audio cassettes).

I am also getting weary of the record-industry bellyachers bitching about how MP3 delivers perfect digital copies of the source material- thats the biggest load of horseshit of all! MP3, by virtue of its compression algorithm, makes a 'perfect' copy impossible! I have NEVER heard a MP3 file that sounded as good as the original, even at high bitrates.

-Aaron

It is my firm opinion that if a "musician" or band is bitching about how much money they are 'losing' because of something, then they are in the music biz for the wrong reason!

I myself prefer to listen to musicians, not recording artists / performing artists.

Claude: I've said it before, and I'll say it again. MiniDisc rocks! Whoo-hoo!! I, too, record my CD's that I have purchased onto MD's for listening to in the car and on the go. I have a MiniDisc deck at home, a car stero MD player, and a portable player.

Now, getting back to the issue of piracy, would it be wrong to borrow my friend's CD and make an MD of it? I guess that would be pretty much equivalent to downloading unauthorized songs for free, huh? Hmmm, guess I better stop doing that.

As others have mentioned, the site MP3.com is a very legitimate way for independent and unknown artists to get their music distribuited. Also, popular artists will many times offer a free download of their latest single, which will spark many album sales. And although the selection is limited, you can download singles for less and two bucks apeice from CDnow and BMG.

I'm sure that the original intent of the personal MP3 players was to allow people to enjoy their own music in the same quality that they get from their CD's, while on the go. It's not the manufacturers' fault that people are copying illegal downloads to their players. But there is nothing wrong with transfering your CD's to your MP3 player to listening to while jogging. If they made it so that you could only get low-quality analog formats, how many people would just go back to using audio cassettes. I think that's a ridiculous idea.

So there's gotta be a way to stop (or at least severely limit) illegally sharing free songs, without stoping all the other legitimate uses for MP3 files. And even if the downloading of free songs was somehow put to an end, what would stop people from borrowing CD's to friends and copying them to MiniDiscs, like I do?

Oh, and another thing I just thought of: You can borrow Audio CD's from most public libraries. Do they libraries think that people are just going to listen to them and then return them?? I think almost anyone that borrows a CD is going to record it. Are these CD's considered public domain or something? (You usually don't find the latest hits among the collection at your local library, at least I haven't.)

------------------
The man with the magic hands.

The RIAA and the labels are currently in litigation with both of those services as well as others in an attempt to try to shut them down.

BUT:
Even P2P services have legitimate uses...

>>So there's gotta be a way to stop (or at least severely limit) illegally sharing free songs, without stoping(sic) all the other legitimate uses for MP3 files.<<

Thats what Napster tried with their filtering system. While it did work to some degree, there are of course several ways to circumvent the technology.

-Aaron

It does however that we have a right to the pursuit of happiness.

So if making one happy is stealing music, then so be it. RIGHT?

Music is intellectual property. The holder of that property has rights. If thier rights are infliced upon by legitimate software, then the manufacturer must be held responsible. That is the basis of tort law.

The downloaders may be committing piracy, however the actions of 70 million americans could not have ever taken place if not for the legitimate software that allowed the illegitimate use of it. The fact that the designers of it have not done thing one to even attempt to do anything about it shows that they, not the users, are the ones directly to blame.

This is why RIAA went after naptser, not the users. It is pointless to go after random users, all you do is create an underground even more vast and damaging.

When we go to war, we don't go to war with particular soldiers, we go to war with a country. We attack thier bomb making facilities, not thier personal homes. We attack thier military bases, not thier hospitals (well not intentionally).

This is what should be done. We need a declaration of war on intellectual property piracy. Go after and shut down any company that provides a set of software tools or a safe haven for hackers or downloaders to rip off content.

The fact that you can get most of this stuff for free is disturbing. I mean the software to rip all this stuff off is totally free, if you know where to look. So go after anyone providing tools to rip off artists.

There are many legitimate uses of MP3, etc. Players should be free and legal. Sites that offer free downloads, authorized by artists, fine there too. But anyone offering the ability to rip a cd to mp3, that should cost a pretty penny. Anyone who wants to do this, should be willing to pay a fee to do it.

I use Nero burn 5. I got it free with my burner. I used to use EZ CD creator, but the newer versions kept costing too much. the programs are free, but they should not be.

We need to target the problem, and the problem is the provider of free rippers, and file sharing/stealing services. That would cut the majority of piracy.

MP3 is a great site. One of my relatives, my uncle, has a few songs there himself. If you are really into hair bands, look up M7, and ST. Laurent. He used to fancy himself a singer. He also had short stints with Viscous Rumors and UFO, and a few other bands of the like.

Dave

quote:

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Music is intellectual property. The holder of that property has rights. If thier rights are infliced upon by legitimate software, then the manufacturer must be held responsible. That is the basis of tort law ...

This is what should be done. We need a declaration of war on intellectual property piracy. Go after and shut down any company that provides a set of software tools or a safe haven for hackers or downloaders to rip off content.

---

Interesting. I'll point out that cameras can just as easily be used for copying graphic art, and photocopiers can just as easily be used for copying magazines and books.

Do you also recommend a declaration of war on Nikon and Xerox?

If I were a musician (instead of a "recording or performing artist") I would be doing backflips if my song or album was downloaded 10,000 times!! At least I know how many people want/like it. If people just swapped CDs and copied them, I would never know how popular I really was.

My mother has some old records from the 60's from Europe, and on the outer edge of the label there's the message: "Any duplication, copying, public performance, radio broadcast, renting, lending, borrowing, leasing through a rental or library agency, or modification of this recording is strictly prohibited." So technically, if she let her neighbor borrow the record, and the neighbor scratched it, they would have BOTH commited at least 3 of those "crimes." (Lending, Borrowing, and the scratch which Modified The Recording.)

The idea has been beaten to death here, but it's the only solution: Create something people WANT to buy instead of putting out the same inferior product and DEMAND they buy it, or implement methods that will FORCE them to buy it. As for people suggesting to "ban" the MP3 format alltogether, we should use some of those guns the constitution grants us and thin out the gene pool. It's like saying, "Okay. There has been a problem with people copying books with pencils, so from now on, only PENS will be available to the public."

Heck, with today's ultra-mega-high-speed-"digital" internet connections, people could just start swapping the larger WAV or AUD files which would give them better quality anyway.

I wonder what brouhaha will erupt once DVD burners and blank DVD-Rs come down in price. Right now, they're at what CD-Rs were 5 or 7 years ago.

AFAIK, the average home user has no way of duplicating records or flim(onto the same media). So there's another battle won by Analog!!

Morals aside, I do think it is humorous that no matter what kind of copy protection/encryption the industries come up with, the consumers will ALWAYS outsmart them.

quote:

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>> 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.<<

Then kindly explain how 'NSYNC's (I know a bad group to illustrate with but the facts use them as the example) second-to-last album even though it was available on Napster almost a month previous to its street date was one of, if not *the* biggest selling album of that year???

---

One has nothing to do with the other. I said that the label's subscription services will never work because people won't want to pay for something (downloads) that they've been able to get for free.

Also on the subject of "pristine digital quality" MP3s: I would venture that about 90% of people in this country would think that an MP3 sounds just as good as a CD on a typical system...since the typical system is a portable boom box with plastic speakers, or a car stereo with the bass cranked up higher than the national debt.

"I'll point out that cameras can just as easily be used for copying graphic art, and photocopiers can just as easily be used for copying magazines and books. Do you also recommend a declaration of war on Nikon and Xerox?"

John, don't be silly. Taking a photograph of the Mona Lisa is not the same thing as taking a digitial copy of a digital source. Making a cheap photocopy of a book or article is not the same thing, and can actually cost you more than the original. That assertion of yours is just silly and rediculous. Come back to me when you have something a bit more constructive.

Thomas Procyk said;

"As for people suggesting to "ban" the MP3 format alltogether, we should use some of those guns the constitution grants us and thin out the gene pool."

So suggestions get you killed? Is that your answer? I think your straightjacket is too tight around the neck.

As for if you need permission to use the word PEPSI, if it is for public use, other than in passing, and for profitable means, then yes. The word did not exist until they created it.

Intellectual property is a right. If any one of us created something and it was just ripped off from you by everyone, would you be upset. YES YOU WOULD. Just to say that you would be happy and thrilled is just you saying that. Suppose your employer decided to stop paying you. The fact that you are still there should show you how much you are loved and appreciated, right?

What the artists are doing is thier job. If they stopped getting paid, then they might just get upset. Some artists more than others. Some don't get paid that much, some get paid ungodly amounts. But it is thier job. Is MP3 the money equalizer? NO. It is majority piracy. Can we kill it. No. Impossible at this point. Too much access. Can anything be done. Yes. Destroy any content providers that allow free and easy access to illgotten materials. Simple. Go after free rippers and shut them down. Make users pay a fee to use them, much like users have to pay fees to use virus software. Make it not too expensive, but also enough to make it not so eniticing to be a rip off artist.

It will not stop piracy. I am not delusional. But it will curb the majority problem. Most people do it because it is cheap or free and definately easy. Make it harder, and add a cost too it, and most people will not do it.

When napster was around, I like many others, am guilty of downloading plenty. But when it was shut down. So was I. I gave up. Yes there are other shareservers now, but so what. Eventually they will be gone too. Most people will give up. If they insist on ripping off music, they will have to either borrow an already purchased cd or buy one themselves. At least this way, it becomes harder for one copy of a cd to reach 10 thousand users. It brings it closer the the old 1 copy to 10 users problem. That they can handle.

Dave

Dave

quote:

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So suggestions get you killed? Is that your answer? I think your straightjacket is too tight around the neck.

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Not all suggestions, but dumb ones should certainly carry some sort of penalty. The dumber the suggestion, the stiffer the penalty. Suggesting that an entire file format should be banned simply because it is used to do something illegal warrants just that. If a hammer were used in a murder, does that imply that all hammers should be banned because they MAY be used to commit another murder?

quote:

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As for if you need permission to use the word PEPSI, if it is for public use, other than in passing, and for profitable means, then yes. The word did not exist until they created it.

---

Okay. Pepsi was a bad example. And even if I didn't make a profit from my work, they could still get me on grounds of copyright, because, it's "their" word. (I thought words belonged to eveyone?) But what about company Service Marks? Technically, VISA could sue me if I used "It's everywhere you want to be." They didn't "create" that phrase. It was there. They just claimed it as theirs to identify their company. When we're at a point where someone can OWN a word, we're truly in trouble.

AFAIK, downloading music hurts the recording companies many times more than it hurts the artist themselves. Many artists actually SUPPORT the downloading of MP3s. It seems the ones that aren't cutting it anymore (Metallica?) are the ones that have problems with it. And if an artist is creating work for the sole purpose of profiting from it, then they are not an artist. They are a business person, and their work suffers. (Example: What George Lucas turned in to)

I haven't bought a CD in over 4 years. They're too expensive, they don't offer anything that their outrageous price will justify, and there hasn't been anything out there that makes me want to dash to the record store. Have I downloaded music? Yes. Many things that I already own on vinyl, or songs that are not available anywhere anymore. I wonder what the numbers would look like if they didn't count the rare, out-of-print, or independent MP3s that were downloaded.

Subscription services wouldn't work at all. All that would happen is a small majority would subscribe, download what they need, and pass it along to other non-subscribers. Back when HBO was the new thing, a neighbor of ours would tape all of the movies and pass them around the neighborhood.

Downloading and burning CDs isn't easy. At least, I don't think it is. Finding the songs, downloading them, and burning them onto a CD for play in a regular CD player can take well over an hour. And they only work in one of my CD players as the other 2 I have don't read burned CDs. It almost seems easier to take 10 minutes to run over to the store and pick up a nice original copy. Well, if they weren't $18 each.....

And no, my straightjacket is not on too tight. My friend purposely did not tighten it all the way so that I could have some mobility as he took the pictures. So there!

=TMP=
Vinyl contains music. CDs contain 1's and 0's.

Many people use CD-RW drives for other purposes than copying music CDs. I'm a computer graphic artist and I am always backing up gigabytes worth of art files. I'm going to be pissed beyond belief if someone jacks blank CD-R and RW discs up to $10 and $20 levels per disc (especially when you have at least a few glitch out). And some of my freelance customers are not going to like it when I pass that higher cost on to them to recoup my data archiving costs.

So, increasing blank CD-R costs is not feasible. The RIAA and record labels are not as big an industry as that of the computer industry. They'll lose on that contest.

Also, let's consider the record industry. There's all this bull- talk about how "artists" are getting robbed of their money by copying. Perhaps a major act like Metallica or N-STANK might take a slight hit from it. But most other music acts GET NOTHING AT ALL from CD sales. Most are signed to what amounts to slavery contracts and they even have to pay back "production costs" to the music company from any profits they make from touring. Well known bands like the Goo Goo Dolls have nearly gone bankrupt, broke-up and taken day jobs once again --after producing several albums. Only after hitting it big with a few pop hit breakthrough songs did this band get into a position where they could get into a new and more favorably profitable contract with a record company.

This is no dirty little secret either. Well known performers like Don Henley and Alanis Morrisette testified before house subcomittees to keep Napster alive since the major record labels were not paying artists anything. Instead of getting a royalty statement and check to cash, many recording artists get a BILL from the label! Downloading services like Napster (or these days, KaZaa and Morpheus) actually serve as a form of advertising. The CD is only one revenue stream. You have all those overpriced concert tickets, videos, t-shirts, posters and lots of other merchandise --all of which the major labels get a handsome cut. These guys are not exactly losing out at all. They're just bitching because they can't figure out how to install a toll meter on everyone's computers and greedily make even more money.

The record industry is seeing falling sales because the general state of quality in popular music these days is at an even worse level than the dying days of the disco era back in the late 1970's. With all the monopolization of radio, music video, concert bookings and consolidation of record companies, there is very little room at all for any innovation. There will not be any type of new movement like what we saw in the early 1980's with punk and new wave unless the major labels grow a pair of balls and allow it to happen. My feeling is the only way it will happen is via independent performers who produce and distribute their own CDs and a very few independent radio stations.

Independent radio is very hard to find. I don't have it in Lawton. ClearChannel has much of that town. I'm writing this post from Colorado Springs (where I am currently enjoying some time off). On my drive up here, I listened to this independent Amarillo Colleges radio station (89.9 FM) which played a bunch of stuff I had never heard before --and a pretty good amount of it was really interesting stuff, and all of it stuff I would not hear on any ClearChannel station. I'm going to go into the 'Springs this afternoon and see if I can't find CDs from any of the band names I had written down on my trip.

And here's a followup: http://www.janisian.com/article-fallout.html

"Okay. Pepsi was a bad example. And even if I didn't make a profit from my work, they could still get me on grounds of copyright, because, it's "their" word. (I thought words belonged to eveyone?) But what about company Service Marks? Technically, VISA could sue me if I used "It's everywhere you want to be." They didn't "create" that phrase. It was there. They just claimed it as theirs to identify their company. When we're at a point where someone can OWN a word, we're truly in trouble."

You could use that phrase anytime, as long as you don't use it with VISA, or another credit card company or credit providing company. It would be the same as a movie using the tagline "in a galaxy far far away", it would be obvious that copyright infringement is evident. However, if you had a fast food joint, called galaxy burgers, using a 50's diner style, you could use the star wars tag line, without fear of recrimination. It is only similarities that worries courts.

the movie, "coming to america" had a ficticious joint called "mcdowells" with the "golden arcs". He kept getting sued by mcdonalds, but was just different enough to avoid prosecution. In reality, he would not have survived, the tort lawyers would have ripped his ass off.

As for Cdr's and rw's costing too much, remember they used to. But I agree, it is not feasable to raise the price.

As for dumb questions should get you shot, I agree. I should have been shot a long time ago.

Dave