Squeeze file-sharers? Is Lily Allen right?

[ukripper]

What you guys think? Is Lily right on music file sharing via P2P?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8274072.stm

[nothingspecial]

What I want to know is - how come I can (not that I want to) walk into a second hand record shop and sell them one of my few valuable lps at a vast profit (from the original price paid many years ago)? Then they can sell it on for a profit, and it`s all perfectly legal. The artist sees none of this money.

[t0p]

Gah I'm sick and tired of hearing how file sharing is going to destroy the music industry. Some of you may be old enough to remember when people used tape cassettes to copy msic off records and the radio. Back then, you'd see posters warning that "Home taping is killing music!" So the music industry is dead, right? Wrong!

When the gramophone was invented, musicians thought it was the work of the devil. Gramophone records would destroy music" they cried. So did it? No. In fact it gave musicians and composers a new source of income. And now, the revenue from record sales is much bigger than what they get from concert ticket sales.

Whenever technology affects the music industry, someone starts bleating how the industry will be destroyed. But in fact it tends to make those industry figures even more money. They just need to figure out how to exploit the technological breakthrough for gain. It will be the same with these latest advances. Lily Allen needs to stop feeling sorry for herself.

[ddrichardson]

The thing that worries me is that these vapid music stars legacy to music will undoubtedly by outlasted by the problems caused by any draconian measures against internet usage in the UK.

Mark this - if such laws are enacted to prevent illegal downloads, they will fail to and at the same time put limits on legitimate usage and impinge on freedom of speech.

Before you flame me into oblivion about artists rights to make money, realise this is not about artists but about how laws are enacted across the UK (both in England and Scotland). This country has a history of politician's knee jerk reaction to the problem of the day by introducing new laws, when current laws could be just as easily applied given the chance for a case to be heard.

This introduces confusion and invariably becomes abused.

Note too that Lord Mandelson is involved in this - I'd urge anyone in the UK reading this thread to look over this article (http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/the-net-closes-in-on-internet-piracy-1772820.html) from the Independent and ask themselves who is behind this.

[mkendall]

And who is Lily Allen? Never heard of her.

[ddrichardson]

Oh - meant to say, if you are in the UK and want to have your say then look at the on-line petition at Number10.gov.uk:

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/web-ban/

There are only 400 odd signatures and it closes in two weeks. Before dismissing this system, I might mention that there have been some high profile petitions on this site such as the case for Gurkha resettlement.

[ukripper]

In my opinion Lily Allen is trying to get as much publicity she can while in there. So she has started appearing on these part time debates when not on stage or recording. Good publicity tactic!

[BuffaloX]

Absolutely no, they've already gone much too far.

If you steal an album in a music store, you get fined like with theft of every other kind of merchandise.
There is actual theft, and actual loss to the store.

If you download the same album, you get a much harsher punishment, although there is no theft, and no provable loss!


What I want to know is - how come I can (not that I want to) walk into a second hand record shop and sell them one of my few valuable lps at a vast profit (from the original price paid many years ago)? Then they can sell it on for a profit, and it`s all perfectly legal. The artist sees none of this money.

Then you should also be compensated when you sell it at a loss.

[nothingspecial]

I worry.

I seed linux distros for a few days/weeks after downloading them.

Do the isps know what you are seeding?

[ddrichardson]

What I want to know is - how come I can (not that I want to) walk into a second hand record shop and sell them one of my few valuable lps at a vast profit (from the original price paid many years ago)? Then they can sell it on for a profit, and it`s all perfectly legal. The artist sees none of this money.
The video game industry have been aggressively pursuing this for years, fortunately to no avail so far. I also suspect, although cannot provide evidence, that this is the true logic behind the limited number of permitted installs on games such as Spore.

[gnomeuser]

So far overwhelmingly the evidence is that downloaders also are consistently the biggest buyers of music.. Miss Lily is wrong even in her assumptions

[benmoran]

Cry me a river. If all she wants is to make money, then go out and tour. That, or try to get more than 50 cents and album from your record company.

[steev182]

Wait - her music became known BECAUSE of file sharing!

If it wasn't for kids downloading Smile, then she would still be know as 'Keith Allen's daughter' just like how Bob Geldof's kids are only in the papers because of who their dad is.

[chriskin]

What you guys think? Is Lily right on music file sharing via P2P?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8274072.stm

No and i can explain : if i didn't download some albums by Finnish artists some time ago, i wouldn't be ready to pay to be at their live shows. i am also about to start learning a language and Finnish is coming to mind by the music i like - something that will help Finland in the later years if/when i go over there.
so, if i didn't download
1) the bands wouldn't gain anything as i wouldn't know them - i wouldn't buy their cds/ i wouldn't go to their lives.
2) their countries wouldn't gain anything
3) i wouldn't listen to good music

so no, taking drastic measures against the p2p communities will destroy most artists that want to become famous.

[Bölvaður]

Nah... begin with eliminating software pirating:) and then we can talk together about music.

[Joe_Strummer]

I disagree...

I love it that in the US one can go to a mall and see a poster that has a car or truck on it and it says "You wouldn't download a car..." Yeah, I wouldn't download a car, but on the same hand, I wouldn't buy a car without test-driving it first.

Personally, I think there are some big benefits to file-sharing that is downplayed. Granted, file sharing isn't something one can (or should) justify easily, but there are some CDs in my collection that I would have never bought if I hadn't downloaded it and listened to it. Luckily for me, I can listen to recommendations on Last.fm and its rare I have to download a CD anymore.

Punishing file sharers is not going to work very well. Its just going to cause people to rebel more. The people from my generation, with our "sense of entitlement", are not just going to say, "Aw, shucks, you're losing money; I'll just stop downloading music now." In my opinion, trying to punish every person who has downloaded a single song illegally is a waste of time and money. I think it would be wiser for the recording industry to embrace file sharing instead of fighting it. If they embrace it and use it to their advantage (though I have no suggestions for how), I believe they would end up making money because of it.

[Kazade]

I don't think I've ever been so frustrated and annoyed about anything. Not just because of Lily Allen's bizarre inability to understand simple concepts, but because the media still seem to think there is some kind of off switch to the Internet that will only block illegal file sharing without invading privacy, affecting other industries or legal downloaders.

I'd urge anyone in the UK to contact their MP and sign the previously linked petition, because any throttling or disconnecting will not be selective about whether the P2P traffic is legal or not. I personally don't really want to have to go to court to prove my innocence.

Also, consider supporting the Pirate Party.

[NCLI]

The video game industry have been aggressively pursuing this for years, fortunately to no avail so far. I also suspect, although cannot provide evidence, that this is the true logic behind the limited number of permitted installs on games such as Spore.
IMHO, trading in your games or buying them used is just as bad as pirating them, at least from the developers' point of view, since the only one to profit from the transaction is the store, not the people who actually made that game.

That is why the retailers are so opposed to the PSP Go. Not because they can't sell new games for it, they don't make all that much money from selling new games, and could easily overcome that by selling cards with PSN credits. They make a lot of profit on used games, and this has to stop, which is why I, and many developers, applaud Sony for this move. It's better for the developers, it's better for Sony, and it's actually better for the gamers as well, because the developers earn more money to make games with.
The only ones not to profit from this are the retailers, as you can see.

I should mention that I actually support pirating of music, and in some cases movies as well. But I feel that the gaming industry especially is under constant pressure to deliver better, deeper experiences, which comes at a cost we, as consumers have to pay if we want them to continue making more immersive games..

[ade234uk]

Was it not the Internet that made her successful in the first place?

[Paqman]

Considering Lily Allen rose to fame through her Myspace page, where she shared her tunes for free, i'd take this as a case of "popstars flaps lips at media" rather than a serious comment.

[ade234uk]

If she wants people to stop downloading illegally, then lets have all these artists websites and videos removed from the web completely.

Therefore they can't moan about people stealing content. We can go back to the old days where we listened to the radio, wathched top of the tops on a Thursdau, and buy the their tapes from the record store.

[Kazade]

I've just sent the following email to my MP. I'm posting it here in case anyone wants to use it as a template to write to theirs (although please don't just copy it word for word, otherwise it'll become just a spam campaign).




Re: The pursuit of illegal file sharers

I am a software developer and supporter of the free (as in freedom) software movement. The free software movement create and give away software under liberal licensing that allows for almost unrestricted redistribution of the software. Licenses like the General Public License[1], and the Lesser General Public License[2].

Software applications can be quite large, and to save on bandwidth costs, many developers distribute their work using peer-to-peer file sharing technology. This is one legitimate use of file sharing technology. Other industries (such as the games industry) distribute content using the same peer-to-peer infrastructure, also independent artists, musicians and film makers use the same network to advertise and distribute their work.

Recently there has been a lot of media attention about clamping down on illegal file sharers; people who freely distribute copyrighted content without permission, possibly over peer-to-peer channels (although not necessarily). This activity is sometimes incorrectly referred to as "stealing" from the content producers, which is certainly not the case. Stealing implies that the victim has suffered a loss, which is not true with digital file sharing. This is purely copyright infringement. There is also little evidence to prove that a downloaded copy of a copyrighted work means a lost sale to the copyright holder, in fact there is evidence to prove the contrary, file sharers actually buy more content than non-filesharers.[3] File sharing acts like a free advertising network, it could be argued that there is no problem and file sharing actually generates profits for the copyright holder.

The government has recently announced the possibility of terminating the Internet connections of households that illegally share copyrighted works. From a technical point of view, this idea has many flaws.

Firstly how would the Internet Service Provider (ISP) determine that copyrighted works were being shared? Would they scan all traffic? Not only would this be impractical due to the sheer amount of Internet traffic that occurs each second, but it would also mean invading the privacy of all users. This is the equivalent of searching every item sent by Royal Mail, or listening to every phone call, but on a far larger scale.

Even if the ISP was allowed to scan every users traffic, how would they determine that the files being shared were being copied without permission? As I have mentioned there are many legitimate uses for peer-to-peer technology, just as there are many legitimate uses for the postal system, and the phone system. If my Internet was disconnected for sharing legal content using peer-to-peer technology, I would be forced to prove my innocence, even though the ISP would certainly be unable to prove any guilt, even if the files being shared were illegal. What happened to a fair trial?

Finally, even if the restrictions could be put in place, they would be easily circumvented by those sharing illegally. There are many technologies on the Internet that provide true anonymity and data encryption. The whole system would fail immediately, and at great cost to the tax payer and our freedom.

I urge you to choose the only sensible option and oppose any such legislation.

[1] http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
[2] http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/lgpl.html
[3] http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2005/jul/27/media.business

[ddrichardson]

Furthering Kazade's post, if you want your MP's email address:

http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/

[SunnyRabbiera]

Anymore I support piracy because of junk like this, you cant monitor the entirety of the net and is impossible to lock it down in a analog way.

[koshatnik]

Yawn, Lily Allen, mouthpiece for her record company.

Yet again, its the same old rubbish from the recording industry. Too slow to adapt, too slow to react to changes in their rapidly outdated business model, and now crying because of their failings.

It's 2009, not 1989. CD's are dead, as are DVD's and Blu-Ray is a walking abortion. These are 20th Century distribution models. Computers and the internet have total screwed this business model. They screwed it 15 years ago. Why didnt the recording industry react to what was happening? They new this was on the horizon.

The final irony? Radiohead made about £2 per download from adopting an honesty box approach to the release of their last album. People in the media guffawed at that. Then someone pointed out that £2 per album is 3 times more than a record company would pass on to their artist from a CD sale of £10. Laugh that up.

Record companies are dead. The sooner they die the better.

[tcoffeep]

Apparently, according to TorrentFreak, she dropped the blog and whatnot after being found to copying an article without permission, and offering unauthorized mixtapes or w/e on her website.

[3rdalbum]

Lily Allen loves a fight.

The truth is, there are serial downloaders who NEVER buy anything; and then there are casual downloaders who only buy individual tracks.

The casual downloaders would not buy the album for just one or two tracks that they like. Without file sharing, they might buy a CD single; which, according to the music industry, is sold below cost. (not true, but the music industry claims this). So the casual downloader is helping to keep the music industry afloat.

A casual downloader will purchase an album by an artist who they like. And how do they find out that they like this artist? Why, by downloading one or two tracks from the artist.

I'm a casual downloader. I found out about a French Canadian singer (Mylene Farmer) through a newsgroup, and I downloaded a couple of tracks of hers from Napster. I liked what I was hearing, so I downloaded some more. When the iTunes Music Store started up, I bought legal downloads of three of her albums, and later bought another of her albums from a different online store.

Then I bought a live DVD and three of her CDs through mail order. One of those CDs was one that I'd already bought from iTunes, because I loved it so much and wanted to be able to have the sort of tactile connection with the music that you can only get through having a physical CD.

Mylene Farmer also writes for and mentors a French singer, whose name is Alizee. I downloaded two of her albums recently and I like them... guess what my next Amazon.com order is going to be?

[Kazade]

The funny thing is... I don't share copyrighted material. I'm more worried about the collateral damage that any attempt to stop illegal file sharing is going to cause. The evidence that shows that file sharing probably helps the music industry just gives us more weaponry to fight the potential restrictions.

[sydbat]

On topic - It's all about greed.

Slightly off topic - some have mentioned used record and software stores. These are fine. So what if the "artists" or programmers don't get any money from these transactions. As was pointed out, vehicles are also bought and sold used. Car manufacturers don't get any money from those transactions either.

As soon as you buy something (according to most countries laws) it is yours to do with as you see fit. EULA's really go against these laws, yet use them to their advantage as well. As long as you do not profit from copies made of software/music/other ethereal things, there is no law broken. To simplify, you can make however many copies of something as you like, regardless of what the record companies or software companies say, because you own it. Then you can give those copies away, as long as you do not charge for them.

This is all in International Copyright law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright).

[bodyharvester]

I've just sent the following email to my MP. I'm posting it here in case anyone wants to use it as a template to write to theirs (although please don't just copy it word for word, otherwise it'll become just a spam campaign).

im following your example but could you send me the full link for the third point as i cant find it on their website :(

also my MP is a labour sort, so which newspaper do you thi nk would be best for her?

[SomeGuyDude]

The hilarious thing is if you actually stole the physical CD's from a store you'd get a slap on the wrists and a little fine. "Pirate" them and now you're going to get sued for tens of thousands.

[Kazade]

im following your example but could you send me the full link for the third point as i cant find it on their website :(

also my MP is a labour sort, so which newspaper do you thi nk would be best for her?

You mean this link? http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2005/jul/27/media.business (ubuntuforums cuts the middle out, just right click and "copy link location" or something)

I think the Guardian is a pro-labour paper so it's likely that you can send them that link.

[koshatnik]

The hilarious thing is if you actually stole the physical CD's from a store you'd get a slap on the wrists and a little fine. "Pirate" them and now you're going to get sued for tens of thousands.

If you file share, you are sharing that CD with thousands of other people (uploading as you download). Steal a CD from a shop and its generally just for your consumption (unless you rip it and torrent it), hence the disparity in fine.

[doas777]

The hilarious thing is if you actually stole the physical CD's from a store you'd get a slap on the wrists and a little fine. "Pirate" them and now you're going to get sued for tens of thousands.
and the worst part of that, is that with a physical CD, concepts like scarcity and deprivation come into play. that is exactly why IP can't have the same laws as physical media. if you pull down a copy of somthing, it isn't missing. it's still right where you left it, so it can never be scarse and you can never be deprived of your ownership of it as a result.

[doas777]

If you file share, you are sharing that CD with thousands of other people (uploading as you download). Steal a CD from a shop and its generally just for your consumption (unless you rip it and torrent it), hence the disparity in fine.

no, i'm pretty sure that they are just shooting for zero-tolerance style deterence. remember MediaSentery et al. can't tell if someone has actually downloaded from you. remember? they were trying to push that "Making Available" theory, untill a judge actually made a ruling on it, and it didn't come out favorably for them. the jury is not allowed to consider such things.

[Grenage]

Clearly theft is ok, and we should just let people get on with it...

Sarcasm aside: I don't like piracy, it's theft. I also don't want an internet connection that's heavily monitored. The bottom line here is that theft is wrong, and you can't defend it; if you can't afford the music or don't agree with the price, don't buy it.

What I want to say: The entertainment industry is nothing but a bunch of profit-mongering whores, stuck being self-righteous in the dark ages. They need to get to grips with the modern age in a big way, and it's that inability that is causing so much butt-hurt.

[tcoffeep]

I pirate everything before I buy it. I don't care if that makes me a criminal. I do not want to buy ****** music/****** movies/****** books/******-or-buggy programs

[tcoffeep]

if you can't afford the music or don't agree with the price, don't buy it.

Read my above post.I will not buy it until I know it is worth it.

[tcoffeep]

Oh yeah, I also pirate materials where the original authors are dead, bankrupt, or no longer making money off of it (see : game devs gone bankrupt [the publishing company doesn't count. see : troika], dead authors, dead artists) or are no longer available on the market.

[doas777]

Clearly theft is ok, and we should just let people get on with it...

Sarcasm aside: I don't like piracy, it's theft. I also don't want an internet connection that's heavily monitored. The bottom line here is that theft is wrong, and you can't defend it; if you can't afford the music or don't agree with the price, don't buy it.

governments govern based on the consent of the governed. if we no longer consent, or agree with their laws then it is our responsiblity to force them to change, wether it be by vote or by civil disobedience.

bottom line, if the people support decrimilization of any given crime, then it must be decriminalized.

[hoppipolla]

Man I hate Lily Allen lol

She is the worst face for this campaign to use xD

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrnNn0mt8h4 :)

[MarcusW]

gah i'm sick and tired of hearing how file sharing is going to destroy the music industry. Some of you may be old enough to remember when people used tape cassettes to copy msic off records and the radio. Back then, you'd see posters warning that "home taping is killing music!" so the music industry is dead, right? Wrong!

When the gramophone was invented, musicians thought it was the work of the devil. Gramophone records would destroy music" they cried. So did it? No. In fact it gave musicians and composers a new source of income. And now, the revenue from record sales is much bigger than what they get from concert ticket sales.

Whenever technology affects the music industry, someone starts bleating how the industry will be destroyed. But in fact it tends to make those industry figures even more money. They just need to figure out how to exploit the technological breakthrough for gain. It will be the same with these latest advances. Lily allen needs to stop feeling sorry for herself.

+1

[Grenage]

Read my above post.I will not buy it until I know it is worth it.

Their product comes with terms, you agree to them or you don't, and you don't get the goods. I'm tired of the 'have my cake and eat it' attitude; if people stopped being selfish and lazy, stuck to their guns and said 'no', there would be no problem.

Consumers are to blame for blindly accepting what is available. "I simply must have this music, but I think it's overpriced" = Theft or paying anyway. There IS a third choice.

[ddrichardson]

If you file share, you are sharing that CD with thousands of other people (uploading as you download). Steal a CD from a shop and its generally just for your consumption (unless you rip it and torrent it), hence the disparity in fine.
If uploading was theft that would be true but as theft is the act of depriving someone of their property (which is not the case here) that isn't such a strong argument.

[SomeGuyDude]

If you file share, you are sharing that CD with thousands of other people (uploading as you download). Steal a CD from a shop and its generally just for your consumption (unless you rip it and torrent it), hence the disparity in fine.

Ah but if you steal a CD from a shop a supply is actually diminished. Strictly speaking stealing deprives a store of two sales: yours and whoever would have bought the product. Nothing is "lost" from pirating music. You're merely taking a copy.

Study after study have shown that those who fileshare spend more money on legal music than those who don't. Hasn't anyone noticed that record sales are NOT hurting in any way? Albums are still going multi-plat in a week, artists are living fat.

Besides, any artist that claims they're hurt by lowered record sales is a liar. They make NO money off sales. They get their cash from merchandising and ticket sales. Want to support artists? Steal albums, then use the money you saved to go to a concert.

[ddrichardson]

governments govern based on the consent of the governed. if we no longer consent, or agree with their laws then it is our responsiblity to force them to change, wether it be by vote or by civil disobedience.

bottom line, if the people support decrimilization of any given crime, then it must be decriminalized.
In theory yes but how do you accurately ascertain what the majority think?

[Colonel Kilkenny]

It's frickin simple.
If you buy music (CD or download), you own that one item you bought and you can do whatever you want with it (as long as you follow the laws).
If you break the law, you break the law and you have no right to say anything regarding what is right and how things should be.

Funny how people here as well forget this thing called freedom when it comes to record labels and "evil companies". It's actually disgusting. Freedom or no freedom at all, your decision. You can't make wrong right by saying something stupid like "I wouldn't buy this anyway" or "I wouldn't have bought these CDs if I hadn't downloaded them first illegally". It maybe true, but that's not the point.

Record labels can decide that their albums cost 150$ piece. It's their right and it's their freedom. You have the privilege to either buy or to not buy, but you don't have right to pirate it with stupid excuses.

Everyone has and should have a right to do bad business. Nobody has rights to break the law. Record labels and their business models might be things from the past but they have the right to be such dinosaurs.

And as I'm pretty sure that this post will cause few flames I'll say that this is indeed my last post on this thread :P

[Grenage]

It's frickin simple.
If you buy music (CD or download), you own that one item you bought and you can do whatever you want with it (as long as you follow the laws).
If you break the law, you break the law and you have no right to say anything regarding what is right and how things should be.

Funny how people here as well forget this thing called freedom when it comes to record labels and "evil companies". It's actually disgusting. Freedom or no freedom at all, your decision. You can't make wrong right by saying something stupid like "I wouldn't buy this anyway" or "I wouldn't have bought these CDs if I hadn't downloaded them first illegally". It maybe true, but that's not the point.

Record labels can decide that their albums cost 150$ piece. It's their right and it's their freedom. You have the privilege to either buy or to not buy, but you don't have right to pirate it with stupid excuses.

Everyone has and should have a right to do bad business. Nobody has rights to break the law. Record labels and their business models might be things from the past but they have the right to be such dinosaurs.

And as I'm pretty sure that this post will cause few flames I'll say that this is indeed my last post on this thread :P

I don't generally make "+1" or "me too" posts, but I'm glad someone else sees it that way.

[doas777]

In theory yes but how do you accurately ascertain what the majority think?



when you see the mob with pitchforks and torches closing in on the castle, and they far outnumber your guards....

all kidding aside, there is significant public sentiment surrounding this issue. at present the only sentiment getting to the legislators however, is the lobbiests.

[Kazade]

Everyone has and should have a right to do bad business. Nobody has rights to break the law. Record labels and their business models might be things from the past but they have the right to be such dinosaurs.

I totally agree with you. But when they start lobbying the government to invade my privacy and potentially outlaw P2P for legitimate uses just to maintain that outdated model, it's no longer about copyright and we must do something about it.

[SomeGuyDude]

Record labels can decide that their albums cost 150$ piece. It's their right and it's their freedom. You have the privilege to either buy or to not buy, but you don't have right to pirate it with stupid excuses.

Ah yes, the old "the business owner is always right" excuse.

"Hey, if you want to eat, you have to pay the $5000 member fee for the grocery store. You don't HAVE to live."

Guess what? If you make crappy product at prices people don't like, they're going to circumvent the laws. When CD's cost $20 and have one good song, not everyone's going to want to buy 'em.

That's the funny thing. With iTunes and ringtone sales, this is all nonsense anyway. You know why WalMart is so loose with returns (as in, you get store credit even if you have no receipt)? Because they know that if they brought the hammer down they'd hurt themselves with it. The RIAA is shooting themselves in the foot with this crap.

Thanks to various methods of selling songs, music sales are as high as they've ever been, taking into account the recession. The RIAA could just enjoy their hilarious profits and turn a blind eye to the completely ineffective piracy and their public image would be just fine, as would their pocketbooks.

This is like when a store arrests a woman for eating a few grapes out of the bin. Technically it's against the law, but seriously dude are you guys losing ANY money on that "theft"? No? Well then why did you go after that woman?

[Grenage]

Guess what? If you make crappy product at prices people don't like, they're going to circumvent the laws. When CD's cost $20 and have one good song, not everyone's going to want to buy 'em.

And guess what, they'd be in the wrong. It they didn't agree with the $20 and they simply ignored it (along with the rest of the lemmings), the sellers would adopt a more attractive price or approach. If I don't like the price of a TV, I don't steal it. People can spout "but it's not physical theft and nobody gets hurt" till the cows come home, but theft is theft.


"Hey, if you want to eat, you have to pay the $5000 member fee for the grocery store. You don't HAVE to live."

You need the latest pop music to live?

[ddrichardson]

Record labels can decide that their albums cost 150$ piece. It's their right and it's their freedom. You have the privilege to either buy or to not buy, but you don't have right to pirate it with stupid excuses.

Everyone has and should have a right to do bad business. Nobody has rights to break the law. Record labels and their business models might be things from the past but they have the right to be such dinosaurs.
This has nothing to do with breaking the law and everything to do with introducing new laws to suit those who would profit most.

As long as people focus on the issue of a companies rights then we miss the bigger picture - introducing draconian measures will extend over more than that which you seem convinced you are excluded from.

I'm sure you don't pirate and neither do I. However when such laws are passed and you are no longer allowed to encrypt transmissions, download large quantities of data (Ubuntu anyone?), stream BBC iPlayer and so on where is there to go?

Before people go off with half cocked remarks along the lines of "I don't break the law so I'm alright" they really should get a better grasp of what is actually being proposed.

[lykwydchykyn]

Besides, any artist that claims they're hurt by lowered record sales is a liar. They make NO money off sales. They get their cash from merchandising and ticket sales. Want to support artists? Steal albums, then use the money you saved to go to a concert.

As a former recording artist, I can attest that this is nonsense.

Tours and merchandise? Merchandise can be profitable; with tours it just depends on where you're at in your career. New artists generally tour to promote an album, and very often the tour is subsidized by the record label.

And yes, most of them don't recoup the album advance and start earning money (though they still got the album advance, which is not a bad deal really considering you are rarely liable for it even if the record company loses money on you).

The "household name" set can make good money touring, but make no mistake their royalty checks are nothing to sneeze at.

In short, you can't generalize like this about what does or doesn't make an artist money. It's moot anyway, because the real crux of the issue is to what extent it's reasonable for the author/creator of a work to control other people's access to that work.

[Mateo]

Yes, I agree with her position. It seems like the best punishment that doesn't go overboard.

[VastOne]

Gah I'm sick and tired of hearing how file sharing is going to destroy the music industry. Some of you may be old enough to remember when people used tape cassettes to copy msic off records and the radio. Back then, you'd see posters warning that "Home taping is killing music!" So the music industry is dead, right? Wrong!

When the gramophone was invented, musicians thought it was the work of the devil. Gramophone records would destroy music" they cried. So did it? No. In fact it gave musicians and composers a new source of income. And now, the revenue from record sales is much bigger than what they get from concert ticket sales.

Whenever technology affects the music industry, someone starts bleating how the industry will be destroyed. But in fact it tends to make those industry figures even more money. They just need to figure out how to exploit the technological breakthrough for gain. It will be the same with these latest advances. Lily Allen needs to stop feeling sorry for herself.

+1

Well Said

[ddrichardson]

If I don't like the price of a TV, I don't steal it. People can spout "but it's not physical theft and nobody gets hurt" till the cows come home, but theft is theft.
No one is saying it's OK to steal - I'm saying that it isn't theft by definition.

Personally I could care less if downloading was given a separate amendment to current theft laws that classified it and gave a punishment.

I absolutely do not want lobbyists pressuring government into applying laws to suit their needs however and I certainly don't want it being conducted behind closed doors.

[SomeGuyDude]

As a former recording artist, I can attest that this is nonsense.

Tours and merchandise? Merchandise can be profitable; with tours it just depends on where you're at in your career. New artists generally tour to promote an album, and very often the tour is subsidized by the record label.

And yes, most of them don't recoup the album advance and start earning money (though they still got the album advance, which is not a bad deal really considering you are rarely liable for it even if the record company loses money on you).

The "household name" set can make good money touring, but make no mistake their royalty checks are nothing to sneeze at.

In short, you can't generalize like this about what does or doesn't make an artist money. It's moot anyway, because the real crux of the issue is to what extent it's reasonable for the author/creator of a work to control other people's access to that work.

You're talking as a more small-time recording artist, and the RIAA isn't exactly getting behind YOUR cause in this crusade. I'm talking the douchesacks like Lily Allen and Metallica that spearheaded this crap about artists going poor thanks to piracy when their private jets aren't getting fueled by record sales in the first place.

This is why, again, guys like Radiohead and Trent Reznor are brilliant. They realize that when you AREN'T an @sshole you end up with MORE fans and MORE people willing to spend money on YOUR product. Reznor made, what, $4mil straight profit on The Slip? How much did Radiohead end up making on Rainbows? And that was a "pay however much you want" download deal!

In short, again, the RIAA is hurting themselves with this crusade because any artists that cling to the "clamp down on downloaders" wagon is going to quickly find themselves on the wrong side of a boycott.

[Kazade]

Yes, I agree with her position. It seems like the best punishment that doesn't go overboard.

Cool, I assume you know how to pinpoint which P2P traffic is copyrighted material and who specifically is transmitting it without infringing on the rights of the innocent?

[Grenage]

When the gramophone was invented, musicians thought it was the work of the devil. Gramophone records would destroy music" they cried. So did it? No. In fact it gave musicians and composers a new source of income. And now, the revenue from record sales is much bigger than what they get from concert ticket sales.

In many ways it did. Nobody wants to listen to some unknown singer in the town concert hall; why listen to someone who couldn't possibly be the equal of [insert current popstar]. Instead of millions of people making a decent living, a few thousand are making an exceptional one.

It's wasn't wrong or bad, but it was the death knell for the musical careers of the majority.

I don't want those days back, but there is a bigger picture and people need to stop being so myopic. If you are pro this or con that only when it suits you, you're a sham and will never be taken seriously. (not directed at anyone in particular)

[RiceMonster]

A good 98% of my favorite artists can thank file sharing for the reason I bought their albums(s). I will not stop downloading music, because it helps me find new artists.

[doas777]

People can spout "but it's not physical theft and nobody gets hurt" till the cows come home, but theft is theft.

are you sure that your interpretation of the meaning of those words is everyone elses?

saying "thing1 is thing1" depends on us all agreeing on what thing1 is. that is half the basis of this argument. you can call it theft if you like but that does not make it so.
I can call past us presidents warcriminals. doesn't mean they'll be on trial in Geneva.

unless you can look beneath the words to their meaning and value within our abstract, then you might as well be saying Neep Flut Blarny, Kwondo Fluuuuuuu.

[ddrichardson]

Neep Flut Blarny, Kwondo Fluuuuuuu.
klaatu barada nikto

[lykwydchykyn]

You're talking as a more small-time recording artist, and the RIAA isn't exactly getting behind YOUR cause in this crusade. I'm talking the douchesacks like Lily Allen and Metallica that spearheaded this crap about artists going poor thanks to piracy when their private jets aren't getting fueled by record sales in the first place.

I'm not sure what you think my "cause" is, I don't have one here. I got out of the music industry years ago.

But you're restricting your remarks to "big time" artists, you're still wrong. They, more than anyone else in the industry, DO make money on record sales. A lot of it. I don't know where you get the idea that they don't.

If you want to debate the extent to which an artist should be able to control the use of their work, or to what extent the government should help them do that I think there's a worthwhile discussion there. But making false statements like "these artists don't make money on CD's anyway", or invoking class warfare, is just a bad argument.

[Kazade]

If you want to debate the extent to which an artist should be able to control the use of their work, or to what extent the government should help them do that I think there's a worthwhile discussion there. But making false statements like "these artists don't make money on CD's anyway", or invoking class warfare, is just a bad argument.

+1 I think people are getting distracted discussing whether copyright infringement is wrong (it currently is legally and morally) and not discussing the real issue which is the very real possibility that if you download Ubuntu over bittorrent next year you might well receive a nice letter from your ISP.

[Grenage]

are you sure that your interpretation of the meaning of those words is everyone elses?

That's a fair question. What does everyone else call taking (or copying) something without the owner's consent?

[chris200x9]

governments govern based on the consent of the governed. if we no longer consent, or agree with their laws then it is our responsiblity to force them to change, wether it be by vote or by civil disobedience.

bottom line, if the people support decrimilization of any given crime, then it must be decriminalized.

yea because THAT works....

while I agree with you that this is how it *should* work, sadly it does not. In my humble opinion laws will not be changed, too much money, lobbying is how anything gets done in washington it's no longer about the people. So go ahead try civil disobedience you'll just get sued.

[lykwydchykyn]

In many ways it did. Nobody wants to listen to some unknown singer in the town concert hall; why listen to someone who couldn't possibly be the equal of [insert current popstar]. Instead of millions of people making a decent living, a few thousand are making an exceptional one.

It's wasn't wrong or bad, but it was the death knell for the musical careers of the majority.

I don't want those days back, but there is a bigger picture and people need to stop being so myopic. If you are pro this or con that only when it suits you, you're a sham and will never be taken seriously. (not directed at anyone in particular)

Absolutely right there. Though frankly, if the world goes back to music being a small-time, median income career rather than the feast-or-famine that it is now, I won't cry. I'm not expecting it to, though...

[ddrichardson]

+1 i think people are getting distracted discussing whether copyright infringement is wrong (it currently is legally and morally) and not discussing the real issue which is the very real possibility that if you download ubuntu over bittorrent next year you might well receive a nice letter from your isp.
+ 1

[lykwydchykyn]

That's a fair question. What does everyone else call taking (or copying) something without the owner's consent?

Taking or copying? Which is it?

[doas777]

That's a fair question. What does everyone else call taking (or copying) something without the owner's consent?

From http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/theft


Main Entry: theft
Pronunciation: \ˈtheft\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English thiefthe, from Old English thīefth; akin to Old English thēof thief
Date: before 12th century
1 a : the act of stealing; specifically : the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it b : an unlawful taking (as by embezzlement or burglary) of property
2 obsolete : something stolen
3 : a stolen base in baseball
Most of these deal specifically with Deprivation of an artefact.
copying is not really covered in this definition. when you embezzel a penny, you are not left with 2 pennies. when you buglarize a building, you are not creating a second copy of the items stolen.

[solitaire]

I pirate everything before I buy it. I don't care if that makes me a criminal. I do not want to buy ****** music/****** movies/****** books/******-or-buggy programs

I use the term "Ethical Piracy" for what you describe (it's what I do!)

A Punish / Reward method: if you like it you buy it! If not, then the industry involved gets nothing for bad product.

I reward those that create good, useful, interesting or unusual products which I like,

And punish those terrible, bland conveyor belt movies and "artists" that the industry churns out and drop on a daily basis.

I've bought over 300 DVD's including 30 box sets of shows (not including the multiple copies of some movies due to: special, anniversary, remastered editions releases).

I'm not a big music lover, but I use spoitfy every now and again and have bought albums and singles via iTunes and on my mobile (only got 8Gb of various music formats ) including digital rips of all the CD's i've bought over the years..

[ddrichardson]

Most of these deal specifically with Derivation of an artefact.
copying is not really covered in this definition.
You're right and moreover it doesn't need to be redefined as in the UK at least, there is already a law in place to cover such offences - the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright,_Designs_and_Patents_Act_1988). I believe the US NET act is similar.

[Hyporeal]

Piracy is like jaywalking. It's technically illegal but lots of people do it and never get punished for it. Each person has to make up his or her own mind about what the right course of action is, what risks are involved, what the potential benefit is, what the morality of the situation is, etc.

Piracy is not like civil disobedience. It is a lame way to protest. It involves very little risk. It is covert. It does not send a clear message.

Piracy is not like theft. It is a consensual transaction between people in which information gets copied from one person to another. The copying violates the copyright on the data.

[ddrichardson]

Piracy is like jaywalking. It's technically illegal but lots of people do it and never get punished for it. Each person has to make up his or her own mind about what the right course of action is, what risks are involved, what the potential benefit is, what the morality of the situation is, etc.No piracy is like copyright infringement. Jaywalking is a criminal offence, copyright infringement in the UK is not UNLESS you are doing it for profit or to enable profit to be made.

[Hyporeal]

No piracy is like copyright infringement. Jaywalking is a criminal offence, copyright infringement in the UK is not UNLESS you are doing it for profit or to enable profit to be made.

My comparison to jaywalking was based on the nature of the crime, not a particular country's legal code. Obviously, most countries see jaywalking and piracy as separate offenses. Your comparison to copyright infringement simply begs the question. Perhaps there's a more apt analogue than jaywalking, but it seems appropriate to me.

[ddrichardson]

My comparison to jaywalking was based on the nature of the crime, not a particular country's legal code. Obviously, most countries see jaywalking and piracy as separate offenses. Your comparison to copyright infringement simply begs the question. Perhaps there's a more apt analogue than jaywalking, but it seems appropriate to me.
Yes but as this is a discussion on the Digital Britain initiative in the UK and the application of laws here, it seems accurate.

[ddrichardson]

For anyone following this who is unclear as to why this is so unpopular in the UK, its not to do with piracy but more to do with the amount of power that one unelected peer is currently wielding.

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article6797844.ece

[doas777]

For anyone following this who is unclear as to why this is so unpopular in the UK, its not to do with piracy but more to do with the amount of power that one unelected peer is currently wielding.

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article6797844.ece

i'm in the US, but I read el reg daily. folks in the UK have good reason to be mad right now, and having one more party spying on them is prolly not welcome.

[tcoffeep]

The only reason I will pirate something before I buy it :

If I like it, the company and artists and whoever else get my money in the ned. If I don't, it's not like I was going to buy it anyways.

[Lemmy's Wart]

For anyone following this who is unclear as to why this is so unpopular in the UK, its not to do with piracy but more to do with the amount of power that one unelected peer is currently wielding.

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article6797844.ece

I love one of the quotes in the comments section to the above link.

"Rightly or wrongly every time I happen to picture Mandelson an image forms in my mind. It is of a sad and pathetic old man holding a sandwich board with the words "For Rent" emblazoned upon it."

Mandy was not exactly a popular bloke before this.

[gn2]

Was it not the Internet that made her successful in the first place?

No, it was being the daughter of Keith Allen (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0020717/) which opened the doors for her.

Not all artists share her ideas: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8097324.stm

[Viva]

You can talk all about freedom on the internet, but you'll look like a hypocrite if you don't respect others' rights. People might enjoy their internet freedom by breaking others' copyrights, but in the long term, we might all suffer if the governments decide to take have more control over the internet.

[MattBD]

Filesharing represents a tremendous opportunity for record labels in many ways. There have been plenty of established artists for whom it has actually worked out better to give their music away to some extent (Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails etc)because they're not tied to the usual distribution channels and can keep more of the profits.

I would expect that independent labels should also be able to make it work because they tend to be more innovative and have lower margins. The people who stand to lose out the most are the major label, and they're the ones who are most heavily behind the anti-filesharing movement.

One thing I've thought for a long time is that singles should be available as a free download. You see, a CD single costs as much to duplicate as a CD album does, and it costs as much to distribute as well. The only thing that's cheaper is studio time and production (but you could use something like Audacity). So a single has to sell a lot of copies to even break even (I'm talking about huge numbers here, not a few thousand). It's essentially just an advert for the album.

But what about if the artist records a single, then host a zip file containing MP3's of the songs on their website? Then you only have hosting costs, which depending on the popularity of the artist could be just a few pounds a month? Or better yet, upload it to a few filesharing networks and there's no cost at all. The artist's music gets heard by people who stumble across it and choose to check it out. Yes, they won't buy it, but a new artist is more likely to take a loss on a brand new single.

The net result would be that people would be more willing to listen to an artist they've never heard of before because they don't have to cough up their hard-earned cash so they can afford to take a chance on something new. I've discovered a tremendous amount of stuff through services like Spotify, Jamendo and Last.fm that otherwise I wouldn't have heard, and in many cases I've gone on to buy the album. If every artist released all their singles free of charge I'd be downloading them all and discovering new music all the time, and some of it would result in me buying the album.

[tcoffeep]

I use the term "Ethical Piracy" for what you describe (it's what I do!)

A Punish / Reward method: if you like it you buy it! If not, then the industry involved gets nothing for bad product.

I reward those that create good, useful, interesting or unusual products which I like,

And punish those terrible, bland conveyor belt movies and "artists" that the industry churns out and drop on a daily basis.

I've bought over 300 DVD's including 30 box sets of shows (not including the multiple copies of some movies due to: special, anniversary, remastered editions releases).

I'm not a big music lover, but I use spoitfy every now and again and have bought albums and singles via iTunes and on my mobile (only got 8Gb of various music formats ) including digital rips of all the CD's i've bought over the years..

Exactly :-)

[ddrichardson]

The ethical piracy loses a lot of weight when one considers 24 hour radio and music channels.

[tcoffeep]

Radio and music channels do not do much in regards to paying $20 for 1 song, when the rest of the album is ****. The new movies ( I cannot afford to buy every movie or rent them just to see ) aren't on television yet, so I gotta rely on reviews, half of which I've learned I don't agree with. Books don't really get much publicity. Demo programs usually have 3/4 of their utilities disabled. Shall we agree to disagree? If I like what I pirate, I buy it. If not, I may buy the song off of an online resource. If I like a few songs, I will buy a few songs. If it's a masterfully crafted album (like The Postal Service's Give Up), then I will buy the whole album in its physical form.

[doas777]

The ethical piracy loses a lot of weight when one considers 24 hour radio and music channels.
I never consider a channel under someone elses control sufficient for my entertainment needs.

i came to this conclusion in the late 90's, when the local channel with exclusive rights to all things startrek decided to stop showing it, but not give up their contract. they even went so far as to force the local syndicates that carried it in other towns (but available on cable) to block out their programming with a blue message stating that i was not allowed to enjoy scifi adventures.

streams will never be under my control. like a copy of 1984, just when your in the middle of page 152, they dissappear forever....

that prolly doesn't speak to "ethical piracy", but i did feel like saying it. lol.

[ddrichardson]

Radio and music channels do not do much in regards to paying $20 for 1 song, when the rest of the album is ****. The new movies ( I cannot afford to buy every movie or rent them just to see ) aren't on television yet, so I gotta rely on reviews, half of which I've learned I don't agree with. Books don't really get much publicity. Demo programs usually have 3/4 of their utilities disabled. Shall we agree to disagree? If I like what I pirate, I buy it. If not, I may buy the song off of an online resource. If I like a few songs, I will buy a few songs. If it's a masterfully crafted album (like The Postal Service's Give Up), then I will buy the whole album in its physical form.
See the problem is (again) that we are complicating two seperate issues - that of being able to try things and that of wider encompassing laws on a specific issue and now you want to put low income into the mix?

The fact remains that piracy is illegal and it is the very arguments you are giving now that will be used to ram home laws which will allow wide scale invasion of privacy, prevent downloading films and streaming media (legally) and inhibit technological advancement. To me that seems too high a price to pay in the long term.

We're also confusing ethics and legality. I happen to think that what you are saying makes sense if it were legal, it isn't which changes the argument entirely.

Films have trailers and movie reviews, not to mention personal experience from previously watched films by that director. The same is true of most music with trailers replaced by airtime on radio, television and internet.

Books, well Amazon have sample pages and there's still Waterstones - you can pick up, read have coffee and purchase (one of my favourite pass times I must confess). Not to mention Libraries of course nor the unbelievable amount of material that is now freely available, such as Project Gutenberg.

As for buying one track and not wanting an album, then that is a real issue for the music industry to take away and I see your point entirely.

[gnomeuser]

The ethical piracy loses a lot of weight when one considers 24 hour radio and music channels.

That is a valid argument was it not for the type of music being played on most of those stations. Most copyright infringement is about discovering new music, something that is hardly possible on stations that play the same songs over and over or are restricted to playing songs that appeal to certain wide audiences.

The only alternative is to go for streaming radio stations with more varied taste, these are also in most cases being squeezed out of the market by licensing fees or forced into blatant unlawfulness by non-compliance with such payments.

In either such scenerio you still don't get the full catalog at your disposal to pick and choose from, you don't get to determine the next song. You can't sit and adore an album in it's full intended length.

We thus return to the data, people who download are the industry's biggest clients. If the industry angers them or hampers their buying power, they are likely to hurt their sales. I am not saying they should just give up but they need to understand the reasons why people feel the need to do this and find ways to work with this new situation.

I am very excited to see the industry attempt to do something real with things like spotify, I think that will have a much higher impact on curbing destructive downloading (defined as downloading without the customer having an average or higher than average purchase rate) than anything they have tried in a courtroom. I think it might transform the way we enjoy music, it still needs to get the licensing cleared worldwide and let people add their existing catalog to the service. Finally they need to expand the service to cover as much as possible of the complete human music catalog, it is not enough to have the top artists, people like newcomers, oldies, indie artists and they need to be available.

[ddrichardson]

That is a valid argument was it not for the type of music being played on most of those stations. Most copyright infringement is about discovering new music, something that is hardly possible on stations that play the same songs over and over or are restricted to playing songs that appeal to certain wide audiences.
While there is evidence that illegal downloaders purchase more music there isn't that most infringement is about discovering new music and if we're honest that is extremely idealistic.


The only alternative is to go for streaming radio stations with more varied taste, these are also in most cases being squeezed out of the market by licensing fees or forced into blatant unlawfulness by non-compliance with such payments.
But it isn't the only alternative. If you don't download, don't hear it on the radio and don't buy it then its not making them any money. That's far more likely to make them look at alternatives than breaking the law and expecting them to fall in line.


In either such scenerio you still don't get the full catalog at your disposal to pick and choose from, you don't get to determine the next song. You can't sit and adore an album in it's full intended length.
Why should you? You can't go to a restauraunt, eat a meal then say you don't care for peas and not pay. A product sample is one thing - that's something else.


We thus return to the data, people who download are the industry's biggest clients. If the industry angers them or hampers their buying power, they are likely to hurt their sales. I am not saying they should just give up but they need to understand the reasons why people feel the need to do this and find ways to work with this new situation.
See you have that upside down and its this kind of logic that will facilitate laws being brought in. While I agree enirely that media copanies need to re-evaluate, they aren't going to as long as people are downloading - it plays to their sense of injustice. As I said above - don't do it, damage their sales and prove what you believe to affect a change.


I am very excited to see the industry attempt to do something real with things like spotify, I think that will have a much higher impact on curbing destructive downloading (defined as downloading without the customer having an average or higher than average purchase rate) than anything they have tried in a courtroom. I think it might transform the way we enjoy music, it still needs to get the licensing cleared worldwide and let people add their existing catalog to the service. Finally they need to expand the service to cover as much as possible of the complete human music catalog, it is not enough to have the top artists, people like newcomers, oldies, indie artists and they need to be available.
As I said though, they have to change and they wont while people advocate illegal downloading, they'll continue to push for legal change.

[t0p]

bottom line, if the people support decrimilization of any given crime, then it must be decriminalized.

I love the anarchistic sentiment. But it is politically naive. What you're suggesting is rule by referenda, while what we actually have is parliamentary democracy. Once every 4 years or so, we get to elect a government. They then rule us according to stated policies, not by what's popular at any given time. If we don't like what they've done, we can vote them out at the next election.

And if we do vote them out, what will we achieve? The only political party I can think of that's pro-file sharing is the Pirate Party; and they're not exactly what you'd call mainstream.

Also, this law to disconnect file sharers from the internet is not being considered in order to benefit the people of Britain. Its beneficiaries are in the music industry. That industry is pretty much controlled by large media corporations. Those corporations also control the TV channels, including news channels. A lot of voters derive their views from the news on TV.

Draw your own conclusions.

[ddrichardson]

Also, this law to disconnect file sharers from the internet is not being considered in order to benefit the people of Britain. Its beneficiaries are in the music industry. That industry is pretty much controlled by large media corporations. Those corporations also control the TV channels, including news channels. A lot of voters derive their views from the news on TV.

Draw your own conclusions.
That's true but they don't yet control the Internet. The current government make some poor decisions but are very susceptable to pressure from the electorate. The squeaky wheel gets the oil.

[LookTJ]

File sharing won't be stopped, no matter what strategy you try. I'd be outraged if they cut me off for sure.

all I have to say. :)

[etnlIcarus]

While there is evidence that illegal downloaders purchase more music there isn't that most infringement is about discovering new music and if we're honest that is extremely idealistic.Not really. Probably 90% is discovery, 10% is stuff I'd heard before. It is discovery - just not necessarily with the intention of becoming a paying customer, should the discovery prove fruitful.

Anyway, I'm not sure about everyone else but the music industry is trying to draw blood from a stone, if they expect to harass me into paying for music. Music is rarely worth the small fraction of bandwidth I use downloading it, let alone money. Film and television is a different kettle of fish.

[t0p]

See you have that upside down and its this kind of logic that will facilitate laws being brought in. While I agree enirely that media copanies need to re-evaluate, they aren't going to as long as people are downloading - it plays to their sense of injustice.


Ridiculous. If illegal downloading stopped tomorrow, the music industry would smile, rub their hands together and carry on business as usual. They will change their business model only if they are forced to do so. Rampant file sharing is one thing that will eventually force this change.

And file sharing will continue, in one form or another, no matter what laws are introduced. The digital cat has been let out the bag. The law will be playing catch-up for a long time to come.

[ddrichardson]

Ridiculous. If illegal downloading stopped tomorrow, the music industry would smile, rub their hands together and carry on business as usual. They will change their business model only if they are forced to do so. Rampant file sharing is one thing that will eventually force this change.

And file sharing will continue, in one form or another, no matter what laws are introduced. The digital cat has been let out the bag. The law will be playing catch-up for a long time to come.
Its not ridiculous unless you isolate one comment from an entire post as you just did.

The point I responded to was the suggestion that those buying music are the ones illegally downloading - if that were true and they stopped downloading then they would not be buying either.

If you think that illegal downloading will force them to rethink, you may be right but in the long term how much damage to other aspects of Internet freedom will we lose so that people can continue their self appointed crusade to stock their MP3 players with music that feel they have the right to pick and choose to pay for?

As people, like you, continue to insist that "the cat is out of the bag" and that you can do as you please with impunity, the more laws will be brought in that punish others who are approaching this issue from a fair use point of view.

You don't seem to appreciate how quickly ridiculous laws can be brought in and enforced in the UK.

[3rdalbum]

If the music industry is so worried about piracy from people finding new music, they should stop paying commercial radio stations to play a very small selection of songs, and instead pay the radio stations to play a large variety of music from the whole label.

[Grenage]

Regardless of the personal justification or the ease of piracy, I do struggle to see how anyone can even try to defend the position.

It's handy to try games, movies and music for free; allowing one to decide whether or not it's any good. I believe that illegal downloaders may very well purchase more media than other people, but I suspect that's simply because the people who download substantial amounts are big media fans. The desire to pay for something you already have is somewhat diminished in most people.

I know I've said it before, but just be because you don't agree with the terms of a product does not mean it's ok to ignore them. We have the right to not agree to the terms, and thus not purchase the product - it's not essential. That is freedom, and that is what matters.

If people stick to their guns and refuse to buy something because they do not agree with the terms, and then say why they disagree, the sellers will either change to suit the customers or go out of business.

Let's say you spent 4 years of your life on a piece of software , then decided on a price that was rather high. Some people might think that your software is far too expensive, and simply download an illegal copy. I'd be miffed, you'd be miffed; it's your right to charge and run your business as you see fit. In the same way, you might spend years creating a wonderful bit of code and then release it altruistically under the GPL. How angry would be be if another company took your code and used it in a commercial, closed-source application? Bet you'd get the law involved then, so how is that any different?

Copyright infringement is always wrong, and it always comes down to 'but I want it, so I'm going to take it'; regardless of the reason for wanting it, it's wrong.

If you don't agree with the terms, don't buy the product. If everyone did this then majority rule would force the companies to bend to our modus operandi. In this case consumers are their own worst enemy.

[etnlIcarus]

Not necessarily a strawman but certainly not representative of every pirate's motivations.

I already spend on DVDs all that I can reasonably justify. Due to the sheer volume of content produced, I can spend my self-imposed limit on DVDs, download a couple of films/programmes a month and still not have seen half the stuff I find of interest. Sans the cost of my broadband (which is not primarily used for piracy, anyway), I'm already supporting the industry to the best of my abilities.

The only argument to be made against my behaviour, is the somewhat abstract and altogether uncompelling argument that it's illegal, therefore it's necessarily wrong.

[Grenage]

The only argument to be made against my behaviour, is the somewhat abstract and altogether uncompelling argument that it's illegal, therefore it's necessarily wrong

But isn't that the one that matters? It's illegal because the owner of the media decided to release their product with conditions, not because the world hates digital media.

[ddrichardson]

The only argument to be made against my behaviour, is the somewhat abstract and altogether uncompelling argument that it's illegal, therefore it's necessarily wrong.
That is the point though - of you don't agree with a law there are means to address it politically without breaking it. Its not as if we're talking about stealing bread to feed your children is it?

If people continue to make this sort of argument it is only going to further media companies and ill informed politicians to make laws that will impinge on legitimate Internet use.

What I'm saying is, does your desire to watch the films you cannot pay to own outweigh your desire for a free and unrestricted Internet?

[etnlIcarus]

But isn't that the one that matters? It's illegal because the owner of the media decided to release their product with conditions, not because the world hates digital media.I'm struggling to see the relevance of your reply.
If people continue to make this sort of argument it is only going to further media companies and ill informed politicians to make laws that will impinge on legitimate Internet use.It's a bit of a stretch to make bad policy, corrupt industry and ill-informed politicians the fault of the scapegoat.

At the risk of invoking Godwyn's law, I can think of plenty of scenarios where this reasoning would probably get you banned from these forums.

[ddrichardson]

At the risk of invoking Godwyn's law, I can think of plenty of scenarios where this reasoning would probably get you banned from these forums.
I can't think of any - so feel free to expand. Its not a stretch if you knew anything about the background of this discussion but you clearly don't, this is about a lobby group pressuring an unelected peer who in turn is pressuring government.

[Mateo]

Cool, I assume you know how to pinpoint which P2P traffic is copyrighted material and who specifically is transmitting it without infringing on the rights of the innocent?

I'm ok with ISPs assuming any use of torrents, KazAa, SoulSeek, Limewire, etc. is for piracy since 99% of it is. People should not use technology that was invented for piracy in order to distribute legal files. You should use another method.

[etnlIcarus]

I can't think of any - so feel free to expand.In short: 'the Jews had it coming' (christ, that one is going to come back to bite me in the ****).

Its not a stretch if you knew anything about the background of this discussion but you clearly don'tPathetic. You haven't countered me, offered any kind of refutation. You've just rather vaguely accused me of not knowing what I'm talking about. You clearly do know politics, if you think that kind of behaviour is at all appropriate.

[ddrichardson]

In short: 'the Jews had it coming' (christ, that one is going to come back to bite me in the ****).
That's bordering on offensive and is totally irrelevant.

I haven't countered as you haven't presented anything relevant to counter, other than making yourself look silly.

[etnlIcarus]

I'm ok with ISPs assuming any use of torrents, KazAa, SoulSeek, Limewire, etc. is for piracy since 99% of it is. People should not use technology that was invented for piracy in order to distribute legal files. You should use another method.

Now that's ignorance. Bittorrent wasn't created to facilitate software piracy, it was created to reduce bandwidth costs for independent operators and get around the limitations of http downloads (like breaking and limited resumibility). It's really unfortunate that someone on a linux forum is deriding one of the technologies that has been indispensable in it's history.

[jrothwell97]

I'm ok with ISPs assuming any use of torrents, KazAa, SoulSeek, Limewire, etc. is for piracy since 99% of it is. People should not use technology that was invented for piracy in order to distribute legal files. You should use another method.
Torrents were not invented for piracy, and neither was P2P.

Anyway, perhaps I'm going to dissent from the crowd here: I am, it seems, one of the few who holds on to the quaint notion of using money to buy music. There's a simple reason for this: people have put a lot of work into it, and they deserve a return (most of the time).

Those saying that too much money goes into the record execs' pockets and not into feeding the artiste's hungry family and children are right - in a way. However, even though these royalties may be small, they're still important. Just because you download your music illegally, it doesn't mean the system is going to change - Madonna isn't going to swap her condominium out for a two-bedroom flat in Peckham. It's the people at the bottom, the young, up-and-coming artistes, the underpaid sound mixers and stage managers, etc. who are going to be affected the most.

That said, however, the system is rotten, and we have to strike a proper balance between stopping people who are consistently stealing and those who occasionally share music for personal use, or "try before they buy". I also think proportional punishments are in order: at most, Jammie Thomas-Rasset deserved a fine of $500 (probably less: if I'd had it my way, it would have been more like $100.) Downloading and sharing twenty-four songs does not warrant a $1.92 million fine - if we went by that notion, people convicted of stealing a chocolate bar from a convenience shop should be hanged, drawn and quartered in public. Also, I don't want my internet access monitored and cut off without a fair trial.

The music industry must also stop with the idea that they can control what people do with their music - what devices they can put it on, whether or not they can burn it to a CD, how many computers they can play it on, et cetera. There's a simple solution to this: don't buy DRM-protected music. Buy from iTunes, Amazon, eMusic, or another DRM-free music store, and do what the hell you like with it (as long as it's within the law.) Do not pay for services like the new Kazaa, Zune, Nokia's Comes with Music thing, etc - you do not own the copy of the music you bought. (Spotify is an exception - it doesn't make a pretence that you own the music, and aside from that it's truly excellent.)

In short, both sides need to get a grip, and look at things from the point of view of the other side. For the most part, Ms. Allen is right; however, I'd rather not have my privacy invaded in the name of stopping the selfish people who aren't prepared to cough up for anything.

[etnlIcarus]

That's bordering on offensive
At the risk of invoking Godwyn's law, I can think of plenty of scenarios where this reasoning would probably get you banned from these forums.Gee, really?


and is totally irrelevant.Yeah, demonstrating the flaw in your reasoning by using it in obvious absurdity is irrelevant. Are you kidding me? No, scrap that; are you drunk?


I haven't countered as you haven't presented anything relevant to counter, other than making yourself look silly.At the risk of repeating myself: pathetic. You're avoiding the issue and what's worse, you've again repeated your insinuation that I'm wrong, without putting forward one shred of a point to back up your assertion. Your replies are rather quickly becoming nothing more than a farce, as you cycle through the handbook of 'desperate and vague responses'.

One more off-hand remark and I'll be taking the unprecedented step of reporting a post.

[Mateo]

Now that's ignorance. Bittorrent wasn't created to facilitate software piracy, it was created to reduce bandwidth costs for independent operators and get around the limitations of http downloads (like breaking and limited resumibility). It's really unfortunate that someone on a linux forum is deriding one of the technologies that has been indispensable in it's history.

Do you know about the history of torrents? It was created because teh KaZaA method was most efficient. I can't see into the minds of the original programmers, but i know that it was created to replace KaZaA, I know that it started off as a porn sharing software and then quickly became the preferred means for piracy. Legal torrents came around WAY late and have never put a dent into the overwhelming piracy of its use.

[bodyharvester]

i per-ordered The Dethalbum II last night, as its form america and im in england ill have to wait 18-32 days before i get those two extra tracks and live footage :(

but im supporting the artist i admire, which is technically, Brendan Small and Gene Hoglan

[etnlIcarus]

Do you know about the history of torrents? It was created because teh KaZaA method was most efficient.

So they decided to make a less-efficient method of file sharing?

Besides that statement not making sense, it's just plain wrong. Kazaa and bittorrent were released within about a month of each other.

[Lemmy's Wart]

i per-ordered The Dethalbum II last night, as its form america and im in england ill have to wait 18-32 days before i get those two extra tracks and live footage :(

but im supporting the artist i admire, which is technically, Brendan Small and Gene Hoglan

Gene Hoglan of Dark Angel fame?

Now that is a trip down memory lane. ***wishes he could go and dig out Leave Scars and Time Does Not Heal from his vinyl collection, but does not have a turntable at this moment in time***

[Mateo]

Typo on my part, they created bittorrent because KaZaA was less efficient. It's entire history (and the entire history of file sharing since Napster) has been dominated by use with piracy. You know it, I know it, everyone knows it. Let's not deny an obvious truth.

[bodyharvester]

Gene Hoglan of Dark Angel fame?

Now that is a trip down memory lane. ***wishes he could go and dig out Leave Scars and Time Does Not Heal from his vinyl collection, but does not have a turntable at this moment in time***

well, i know him from Strapping Young Lad and Devin Townsends other works ;)

as for people who would like to know the writer of BitTorrent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bram_Cohen

[etnlIcarus]

Typo on my part, they created bittorrent because KaZaA was less efficient.
Again, their initial releases were about a month apart. It's ridiculous to suggest bittorrent was a reaction to kazaa.


It's entire history (and the entire history of file sharing since Napster) has been dominated by use with piracy. You know it, I know it, everyone knows it. Let's not deny an obvious truth.True. It's just a shame that wasn't the point you were making.

[Mateo]

Of course it was the point. File sharing has always been used primarily for piracy. So, if a small percentage of users are using it for legal file sharing, they should adopt another technology. I'm completely in favor of bandwidth squeezing torrent, KaZaA, LimeWire, Soulseek, etc. users.

[etnlIcarus]

People should not use technology that was invented for piracy in order to distribute legal files. You should use another method.


It's entire history ... has been dominated by use with piracy. You know it, I know it, everyone knows it. Let's not deny an obvious truth.


Of course it was the point. File sharing has always been used primarily for piracy.
Another typo, perhaps? :P


So, if a small percentage of users are using it for legal file sharing, they should adopt another technology.A decentralised, open-source, freely implementable P2P system that magically prevents abuse. Let me know how that works out.

[Mateo]

Another typo, perhaps? :P

A decentralised, open-source, freely implementable P2P system that magically prevents abuse. Let me know how that works out.

I didn't say it should be decentralized. HTTP, FTP have worked fine for the last 20+ years.

[fela]

Gah I'm sick and tired of hearing how file sharing is going to destroy the music industry. Some of you may be old enough to remember when people used tape cassettes to copy msic off records and the radio. Back then, you'd see posters warning that "Home taping is killing music!" So the music industry is dead, right? Wrong!

When the gramophone was invented, musicians thought it was the work of the devil. Gramophone records would destroy music" they cried. So did it? No. In fact it gave musicians and composers a new source of income. And now, the revenue from record sales is much bigger than what they get from concert ticket sales.

Whenever technology affects the music industry, someone starts bleating how the industry will be destroyed. But in fact it tends to make those industry figures even more money. They just need to figure out how to exploit the technological breakthrough for gain. It will be the same with these latest advances. Lily Allen needs to stop feeling sorry for herself.

What he said.

[doas777]

well, i know him from Strapping Young Lad and Devin Townsends other works ;)

as for people who would like to know the writer of BitTorrent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bram_Cohen

had no idea. he has been my hero for years for his work with Death. especially the latter years. Individual Thought Patterns is one of the best albulms ever.

[doas777]

I didn't say it should be decentralized. HTTP, FTP have worked fine for the last 20+ years.

no, actually they haven;t. the P2P paradigm was designed for exactly that reason.

[Mateo]

no, actually they haven;t. the P2P paradigm was designed for exactly that reason.

That's not true. The vast majority of software companies distribution their software over the internet through HTTP or FTP. Most do not use torrents.

[SuperSonic4]

A good band can and will sell out live shows - pirated or otherwise. It's only because Lily Allen's is complete rubbish that she is moaning. Although it's more likely the record company wants to put their message across but the executives are not famous enough. Is it really song to stream Rammstein's new single when I've paid £95 for a pair of live tickets?

Piracy in the music industry is not a good thing but it's not a bad thing either. Bands can now get exposure and make a small amount of money while doing so. Musicians under 18 can get fans where they'd not be able to due to the traditional role of the local bar in getting a band known. New talent [the minuscule amount that exists!] does not have to sign away their life for a few years in order to do what they love.

There are a few bands that I will buy the CD from direct without pirating. Few in number, these bands' previous discographies have been excellent enough to reasonably assume that the new album will be good too.

For the rest albums are too varied, many albums nowadays have a few good songs and the rest are fillers. I cannot trust albums to be good without having listened to the whole album now (apart from those which fall into the above paragraph). On top of that the good songs are released as singles well ahead of time. Plus they're only digital downloads, why not bring the release date forward if it leaks?


It's about time some musicians/all record companies started to treat the fans with respect instead of cash cows - if you don't believe me look at the proliferation of [I]greatest hits albums that come out at Christmas time. Charge a reasonable price and reasonable fans will buy it...

Also Mandy is a tosser, like the rest of the Labour government. Problem is the Tories are equally bad >.<

[doas777]

That's not true. The vast majority of software companies distribution their software over the internet through HTTP or FTP. Most do not use torrents.

so the internet is only for companies with 50000$ servers and OC12 lines? BS. P2P is designed to allow user end operations, thus enabling the democratic internet.

[Lemmy's Wart]

Lily Allen is around the age of 24, P2P has been around for some time now. What are the odds that she herself has downloaded someone's material without the artist's permission?

Could Lily Allen be a hypocrite? The truth usually outs.

[doas777]

Lily Allen is around the age of 24, P2P has been around for some time now. What are the odds that she herself has downloaded someone's material without the artist's permission?

Could Lily Allen be a hypocrite? The truth usually outs.

actually that is half of this issue. I've been told that she illegealy posted an article from techdirt on her pro-greed blog, and that after that she realized the error of her assumptions.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/25/lily_allen/

see post 130

[SuperSonic4]

Lily Allen, Elton John and James Blunt

Long live file sharing if it means these three **** off and retire!

[doas777]

articles on Lilly Allens hypocritical stance on copyright:

http://www.newsfactor.com/blog_article.php?aid=2368800
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090921/0527456270.shtml
http://techdirt.com/articles/20090923/1138026294.shtml
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/6226690/Lily-Allen-drops-fight-against-filesharing-after-Techdirt-spat.html
http://torrentfreak.com/lily-allen-pirates-music-is-clueless-about-copyright-090923/
http://twitter.com/techdirt/status/4152850004
http://delta.techdirt.com/articles/20090922/0310156273.shtml

[ukripper]

Lily Allen is around the age of 24, P2P has been around for some time now. What are the odds that she herself has downloaded someone's material without the artist's permission?

Could Lily Allen be a hypocrite? The truth usually outs.

She is hypocrite as she used to use myspace for self promotion providing free downloads of her songs.

[tom66]

Given that the BitTorrent Protocol supports light-weight RC4 encryption, I doubt that BitTorrent traffic and normal traffic can be filtered out. There is no 'off' switch, and there's also no easy way (without hundreds of supercomputers to process all of the data at once) to tell apart BitTorrent on port 80 and HTTP traffic.

[Kazade]

If you guys haven't seen it, this is worth a watch (and listen): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL9-esIM2CY

PS: After finding it, I checked out his album which is available for free download. I then *bought* the CD for £5. But of course, filesharing is killing new artists < / sarcasm >

Edit: I just received the CD, it's got a hand written note saying "Thanks for buying, you rock! Dan". You just cannot beat that! Independent artists FTW! :)

[Grenage]

Most torrent traffic is easy to recognise due to how it behaves. You can obfuscate it, but not without cutting your speed to the upload rate of a single seeder.

[credobyte]

If you guys haven't seen it, this is worth a watch (and listen): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL9-esIM2CY

Brilliant ( agreed with every single word ) piece of artwork :)

[ukripper]

If you guys haven't seen it, this is worth a watch (and listen): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL9-esIM2CY

PS: After finding it, I checked out his album which is available for free download. I then *bought* the CD for £5. But of course, filesharing is killing new artists < / sarcasm >

Best Lily Allen's song so far......:lolflag:

[doas777]

Given that the BitTorrent Protocol supports light-weight RC4 encryption, I doubt that BitTorrent traffic and normal traffic can be filtered out. There is no 'off' switch, and there's also no easy way (without hundreds of supercomputers to process all of the data at once) to tell apart BitTorrent on port 80 and HTTP traffic.

that is not true. remember the packet has to get to the remote host, and after that it has to be routed to the right socket for the right application to parse it. BT traffic can be identified based on byte order marks within the layer 4+ header, even though the layer 7 payload is encrypted.

ISPs using DPI can tell that you are torrenting, they just can't tell what if you are encrypting.

[Kazade]

ISPs using DPI can tell that you are torrenting, they just can't tell what if you are encrypting.

Exactly. Which is why if any legislation is passed I'm going to start seeding all the free software I can find while recording it with a desktop recorder. :D