Views on crackdown of downloading!

[Kingpin]

hmmm i was jus wonderin wat u guys out der fink abt the measures the industry is goin through to crackdown on downloading. Eg taking u 2 court n makin u pay fines etc. Does dis put u off downloading? Mak u more vary abt da risks if u were 2 be caught? hmm any views whatsoever??

[Inuzuka]

Well, doanloading is killing the music industry= less original/better music. Downloading is like lifting a CD right off a shelf, so yeah, downloading is illegal and thus, it's natural for governments to start putting down laws on this matter. But the truth is, nobody really gives a shit >,<

[2H-Dragon]

Originally Posted by Inuzuka

Well, doanloading is killing the music industry= less original/better music.

I dunno, most artist make most of there money trough concerts and commercials etc.

[Green²]

Originally Posted by Kingpin

hmmm i was jus wonderin wat u guys out der fink abt the measures the industry is goin through to crackdown on downloading. Eg taking u 2 court n makin u pay fines etc. Does dis put u off downloading? Mak u more vary abt da risks if u were 2 be caught? hmm any views whatsoever??

Translation:

Hmmm,.. I was just wondering what you guys out there think about the measures the industry is going through to crackdown on downloading. For example, taking you to court and making you pay fines & etc. Does this put you off downloading and does it make you more worried about the risks if you were to be caught? Hmm,.. any views what so ever??

Answer:

Spoiler:

[Diplomat]

downloading of mp3s arguably only hurt the record industries when it comes to big name artists... and really even then it's not like lifting off a cd. Be honest for a second, when you download a single song you like or an album...and that availability was taken away. Would you really go out and buy the record? If it was something that you didnt really like. The record would like to argue that you would but thats bollocks.

Mind you, i do believe that downloading HURTS the indie musicians REAL BAD!!! unless of course it's the stuff they want you to downlaod to promote their art.

[Baba]

I have my views on the subect and I will organize it into several points I wish to make concernig this issue:

First things, first, my personal view on the subect is the major are blowing the "downloading" issue out of proportion to hide a much deeper recession in the music industry that has nothing (or next to nothing) to do with pirating and more to do with a general changing of habits and customs in the consumer population as well as a failure to change and adapt from the majors.
For instance, the music industry has made tremundous efforst in the past decades to market "tasteless" artists with short carreers and one or two summmer hits. It stands to reason to me that this type of artist realy work against bying the CD since it will be out of fashion in 4 month, and beside, there's usually only one or two songs worth listening on the CD.
Another point, the CD format is getting really old, but the music industry has made little effort to switch to DVD for instance or to provide added value to their CD that would make them more attractive over MP3.
Instead of that, in a time where portable MP3 players are becoming more and more common, they try to prevent you from converting your (legal) audio CD to MP3. The result is that I find myself downloading from the internet some music for which I own the actual CD, jut so I can listen to it on my comp, go figure .....

Now on to the major's attitude toward pirating. Well it's just a constatation that they're trying to put as much blame on pirating as possible for their problems, and they seem ready to go to any lenght for that, and consequently, for it to make sense, for their war against illegal downloading.
This starts out with figures, pirating analyst working for big companies are very prone to cite mind boggling figures were they directly convert the number of files downloaded to a brutal loss in benefit for their compâgny. This couldn't be further from reality and the now it! But it impresses the ignorant listener. In fact, one of the few serious articles that I had found concerning these statistics reported that a song had to be downloading something like 6 million times (can't remember the exact number) to equal to one commercial sell. This stands to reason, as many people download songs (or software) just to try them out, or just because they can, but would never consider actually buying it. (I can't count the numnber of games I've downloaded, played for 3 hours, then trashed ). Same thing for people downloading in poor country, they may download a lot, but do they really represent a loss? Do they really have the financial means to participate in the market more than they already are?
The big question is, if people couldn't download music from the net anymore, would the actually buy that much more CD? I seriously doubt it....
As for the people who got tried in court, for me, this is just one other propaganda operation, they just can't afford to put evryone on trial for these kind of things, but they hope to make a strong impression on evryone through their scapegoats.

Now, true pirating is wrong, and I don't support it, but it's not the evil they're trying to make us see in it. Hell, before internet, we were burning CDs, and before that we were recording tapes, and nobody saw fit to make such a ruckus about it.
Besides other industries (manga, anime, films, games, softs....) are suffering just as heavily from downloading and pirating but don't seem to make such a big problem out of it.

I may have strayed a bit through my rant and I apologize for that, but it felt good writing it .

[microlith]

It's simple really:

Most people download cause they're cheapskates. They don't gives two shits about the effort or money put into creating what they downloaded, just that they get it for free.

I don't blame them for trying to stop freeloaders. I don't agree with their methods, but they're not wrong.

The worst kind of "fan" anyone can have is a useless fan. And that's what people who only download are.

And don't compare making single copies of CDs and Tapes to p2p filesharing. They're the same thing but on TOTALLY DIFFERENT SCALES that do not in any way compare.

[Avaj]

Media is afraid of new technology, I'm sure you've at least heard about how bad they hated vhs tapes.

[Shii]

Let's all move to Winny! \('-`)/

[gunner]

it maybe hurting industies... but maybe its making better artist .... not boyband like punkrock popdiva shit.

[raikage]

I don't think anyone can make a real argument as to why downloading rather than paying is a good thing.

That said, I disagree with attempting to make stealing MP3's a crime punishable by jail/prison.It's ridiculously excessive, and only the government can prosecute in criminal court (tons of wasted taxpayer money, IMHO).

[StoneColdCrazy]

Originally Posted by Avaj

Media is afraid of new technology, I'm sure you've at least heard about how bad they hated vhs tapes.

Similar concerns were raised about home taping too. The music publishing industry assumed that, as soon as people got cassette recorders at home, nobody would buy albums or singles any more.

SCC

[SiL Eighty]

Originally Posted by Baba

Another point, the CD format is getting really old, but the music industry has made little effort to switch to DVD for instance or to provide added value to their CD that would make them more attractive over MP3.
Instead of that, in a time where portable MP3 players are becoming more and more common, they try to prevent you from converting your (legal) audio CD to MP3. The result is that I find myself downloading from the internet some music for which I own the actual CD, jut so I can listen to it on my comp, go figure .....

CD/.wav format is old yes, but switch to dvd is not pratical, logical, or even worth there time to think about. Yes DVD's can hold alot more than CD's but its not pratcical. You can put a ton of music on the dvd, but when it comes to searching for a specific song than we get problems. With MP3 players nowadays you can setup folders and what not for easy use. MP3 players are also more durable than a DVD or a CD. Couple or good scratches on it and it might not play anymore.
Face it MP3 players are just better for music. DVD is only good for large movie type files.

MP3 format is much smaller than .wav and stereo companies caught onto this and 1st made there head units *for cars that is* compatible to read MP3 format. This made the CD more valuable since you could now jam pack a 700mb cd with more than just 18 songs. Now stereo companies are moving on yet again to using actual hard drive based music archives.

Take Kenwood and Alpine for example. Kenwood came out with the first HDD type stereo setup. Think of a nintendo cartridge that plugs into a bay that connect to your computer. Than you plug it into the pad in your car *mostlikely in your trunk* and vuala 10-30GB *pending on the modle you get* of music that wont skip even if you roll your car.

Alpine is a slightly different story. Theyve made a link up so that you can use your iPod with your Alpine head unit. And iPods can hold up to 40gb's. This is the ultimate in moble music. Also iPods are small. How many CD players could your pocket with normal fit jeans on? *iPods HDDs can also be reformated so that you can stick any type of files on there included jpegs avis you name it.*

People want to take their music with them where ever they go. In genral they like something small, light, holds alot of music, and are easy to use. So with that said, Why would the music industry want to go back with bulky CD player sized DVD players to play music when mp3 players are a fraction of the size?

Also its not like they are losing money making everything mp3 now. Alot of people actually use the "pay a $1 to dl this song" sites. *no im not one of them *

Oh yah, I've never come across a cd I couldnt rip Baba could you give me an example or where they've "prevented" people from ripping there cds?

*Ok done ranting... probably no one will read all this anyway LOL*

[hamiko_san]

10 things more, you never know.

[zappater]

Copying music is right!

And the reason is...THE MUSIC COMPANYS make load of money on it.
How? Well how many cd's havn't you bought because you have downloaded a cd?
How many concerts havn't you visited because you have downloaded a cd from a band and thought it was good?
I have bought several cd's that I would never even have considered if I hadn't downloaded the cd's, I have gone to some concerts because I have downloaded cd's and liked the music.

Actually they would sell less cd's if people didn't download cd's because if they hadn't downloaded the cd's they would never open up their eyes for that music.
Just like me, because I started downloading some punk rock I started to listen to it and bought some cd's that I would have considered junk otherwise.
Really people download music they would never have listened to else, then they buy some cd's and then they maybe goto some concerts and buy some merchandise.

So the one question I would like to have answered is how much money havn't the music industrie made because people download music?

[raikage]

Originally Posted by zappater

So the one question I would like to have answered is how much money havn't the music industrie made because people download music?

Quite a lot, actually. I have no idea of the actual numbers, but I personally know a few people that have downloaded full albums off Kazaa (and I mean waaaay more than one). I'm sure there are a lot more of them out there.

BitTorrent has made such downloading easier than ever before.

You make a good point when you say that one can download 5-6 songs to 'preview' an album before purchase. I've done it myself. But how do you get stuff of new artists you've never heard of before via downloading? Do you type random words into a search engine and d/l whatever comes up?

[SiL Eighty]

Originally Posted by raikage

But how do you get stuff of new artists you've never heard of before via downloading? Do you type random words into a search engine and d/l whatever comes up?

You search the genre *ex. Rap, Rock, Alternative, Trance, House, etc etc. Anything you dont recognize you dl, and hope its not a waste of your bandwidth. Thats how I came across trance artists I like such as Armin van Buuren and James Holden. I never woulda been exposed to them if I hadnt been "adventurous". ^_^

[wnkryo]

If history has taught us one thing about laws and how they reflect the people, it is that if a majority of the people feel like some law(s) shouldn't be followed then almost always the outcome is people > laws. Their are many prime examples to prove my statement correct but the best one would be prohibition because it was one of the first times the government realized they cannot control the people if they feel so strongly agianst a law.

In other words, making p2p legal (like in canada) would just make things alot more easier. It doesn't even matter really, because more then half a billion or a billion+ people in the world already download or upload pirated material (like I do, which btw, I am very proud of doing); their wont be that much of difference in numbers when it does become legal here (or anywhere).

File sharing is something that even the heaviest of laws cannot stop anymore. It's time the government realize this and stop trying to take a hopeless detour around it.

[Mr_Paper]

Originally Posted by wnkryo

If history has taught us one thing about laws and how they reflect the people, it is that if a majority of the people feel like some law(s) shouldn't be followed then almost always the outcome is people > laws. Their are many prime examples to prove my statement correct but the best one would be prohibition because it was one of the first times the government realized they cannot control the people if they feel so strongly agianst a law.

Prohibition was actually a huge success.

While prohibition was in place public drunkeness and disorder dropped by nearly 80% of the levels from the years prior to it. Prohibition was put in place to combat these problems and the government ended not because people were opposed it but because the levels of disorder remained low enough over the course of its duration that it was nolonger deemed necessary. To prove how effective it was, levels of public disorderly conduct and public drunkeness have never reached the same levels as they did before prohibition.

[wnkryo]

Originally Posted by Mr_Paper

Prohibition was actually a huge success.

While prohibition was in place public drunkeness and disorder dropped by nearly 80% of the levels from the years prior to it. Prohibition was put in place to combat these problems and the government ended not because people were opposed it but because the levels of disorder remained low enough over the course of its duration that it was nolonger deemed necessary. To prove how effective it was, levels of public disorderly conduct and public drunkeness have never reached the same levels as they did before prohibition.

Prohibition was a huge success? Are you smoking that shit or something? Organized crime was created BECAUSE of prohibition, along with most under the radar clubs, and other criminal obscurities. If you think prohibition was a success, and that is the reason why they took it away, then you really dont know shit.

But I don't want to post any more about it because it has now nothing to do with the thread. It was just simple reference I made.