Hell With Them, They're Thieves...

[Tequila Zaire]

It's an odd time to like technology and it's possibilities. The more we figure out new ways to use and at times abuse our personal computers the more content providers get downright mean. As in this new and utterly rediculous idea

Do we really want companies trying to swindle as much cash out of to decide what we can and cannot do on our PC's with products we legally buy? What's the point of even buying something when you are so limited how you can and cannot use it? Piracy may be a big issue but the way things to be headed it may be the LAST place a consumer truly has freedom. Game consoles, DVD's, Music, PC games and software, etc. are all getting more and more severe with how they are "protected'. Basicly we've all become potential thieves instead of consumers. I hate the fact I fork over $30 for a DVD only to be seen as a crook if I try to watch it on "non sanctioned DVD players" like Region Free DVD players. Worse if is you are a PC gamer you now have to deal with security programs that target your HARDWARE like the utterly evile Starforce.

I'm all for the protection of copyrights in this fun filled digital age but you gotta wonder when piracy became the excuse to strip away a consumers right. First it was the DMCA and now it's nonsense like that above...what's next? Leasing media for a monthly fee? Songs that only play half way unless you type in a security code? Or movies that will destroy themselves if the owner of the content feels you've "used it in a way they don't like"? Their are some sick ideas out their and much of them would be possible if such content owners controlled what can and can't happen on our PC's. It's like having little psies they can watch you with to make sure you ONLY use what you watch, listen, and buy the way it was intended.

PC's, Cars, and just about every other peice of tech would not have evolved to the level they are now if that's how we lived. If a kid figures out how to hack crack DVD protection so he can play them on his linux box...he should not be tied up in courts for years...but that's what happened...

Wait till sony finds out that thanks to their new handheld's (The PSP) support off memoriy sticks you can fit entire films on them with a long yet worthwhile hack. Things like this SEEM wrong but they are quite ingenius and their possibilities are pretty amazing...a damned shame massive tech companies don't see that or like SONY are such rat bastards about it since they PRODUCE the devices that lead to the "pirating". Funny how so many of these Music and Movie studios and companies are owned by the very same companies who produce ALL THE TOOLS NEEDED TO PIRATE THER WORK.

[TheQuietPlace]

This is fuuucked up. Ok I'm all for copyrights and such... but this is going a little too far. I agree it all started with the fuckin' Digital Millenium Copyrights Act. And it went down hill.

According to something I heard on The Screen Savers it takes about FIVE HUNDRED DOWNLOADS to even affect ONE sale of a cd.

[Evilbink]

If they dont want people "pirating" then they shouldn't make the means so readily available. Period.

[mollycase]

If they dont want people "pirating" then they shouldn't make the means so readily available. Period.

I believe the point of this new technology is to make the means less available. I make my living from intellectual property because I am a writer. Intellectual property rights are important to me. I might not like every show I write for, but my dog might not have a yard to run around in if the owners of those shows were deprived of too many of their revenue streams. A special chip in my home computer seems creepy though. I'm not sure I believe it will only be used for good. How does the Ben Franklin quote go? Those who would sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither?

[Tequila Zaire]

The entire entertainment industry needs to realize the old way of making money (commercials) is going to have to change. People simply don't want network schedules to live by anymore, they want their entertainment in new ways and delivered in a manner that they can have it conform to THEIR lives not the other way around. I think many TV shows would benefit from no longer having to worry about their timeslot to be honest. If you could choose the shows YOU wanted to watch when you wanted to watch them It's safe to say TV would evolve into something with better product as opposed the amazing amount of crap on the airwaves now.

[Morning Glory]

I realise this isn't the point but it seems to me the underlying issue here is art versus profit margins. where do you draw the line? well to me, you don't because you can't have both. you can have art that may make money as a side effect or you can have profit margins that call themselves art, but are really just pretenous bullshit. and as far as music goes, where that line get's crossed or even starts is how much of an asshole YOU are, and how much you want to listen to other assholes like you (or neither). If I listen to songs about environmental issues, aside from the fact that assholes don't care and it won't sell anyways, I can bet that the artist isn't going to go out and spend fat cash on fur coats and SUV's. If you listen to music about partying and dirving fast cars, then that 'artist' probibly will spend fat cash on kristal and bentley's. The point? One of these people will probbily give a shit about copy write infringement and music downloads, and the other won't. Most of the music I listen to is DIY made by poor people and listened to by other poor people, so aside from not wanting to alienate thier fan base, they all but encourage music downloads and file sharing because they are just glad that someone's listening to them and passing on thier message. The Cd's that I actually do buy i'm glad to because after deducting the costs of shipping and production, etc. most of the profits that go to the record company and the artists are donated to charity organisations and the artists wind up making about the same as a minimum wage job. So I guess what i'm trying to say is that if the artists you listen to only give a shit about making money off you and don't want you listening to them otherwise, is it really worth it to your overall well being to spend your time listening to someone like that? you might as well just watch Fox News, at least that way maybe you might learn something semi-educational.

[Azekiel]

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*ahem*
the problem is that digital media is entirely different from any physical market. back in the 'ol days you could go into a shop and buy a hammer, and they didn't much care what happened to it after that. you could use it yourself, you could lend it to your friend - but there was still only one hammer, and no way to make two hammers out of it without greatly diminishing both. with digital media you can make a milion copes of something and every single one of them will be as good as the original. This has two implications. one: distribution costs have been effectively reduced to zero. which means the product should be cheaper. So far the companies have tended to think of this in terms of 'hooray! more profit for us!' and that has to change.
Not that production has ever been a large proportion of market price: your £12 CD will have cost about 12p to make. hopefully consumers will now wake up to this disparity and wonder why it should be that way...

and then there's the other side. Consumers like us have to accept that in the same way that zero production cost doesn't mean "extra profit!" so ease of duplication doesn't mean "Free stuff!". Companies will stop assuming every customer is a potential pirate when consumers stop thinking piracy is a legitimate practice. In the end, that song/film/TV show you just downloaded cost money to make, and if nobody pays for it then it just won't get made. i would agree that yeah, once you have to product you should be able to use it in whatever way you like, on any platform you can make it work on. BUT, i think copy-protection and time-limited files are here to stay. Buying a film or gig ticket doesn't entitle you to see that movie or that band anywhere where it's showing and as many times as you like - nor does it allow you to bring all your friends and family along for free. if you wanted to do that you would expect to pay a helluva lot more for the ticket, and the same applies to digital media.

[ForrestBlack]

The entire entertainment industry needs to realize the old way of making money (commercials) is going to have to change...

Although I understand your specific point, I have heard this argument applied in many ways to the entertainment industry, all to justify rampant disregard for intelectual property laws and the spirit they are trying to protect. I can't rob a bank and simply explain that the banking industry just needs to get used to the fact that keeping money in a vault is just so 1900's and that since it's insured, I'm not really hurting anybody's bottom line. Sure, business should evolve, but that doesn't mean anyone can come along, question their methods without a offering a viable and perhaps better solution, and simply gank what they want in the mean time. Digital theft is a huge issue and it really does hurt somebody's bottom line.

[Kidthorazine]

I just dont think that people downloadin music, movies and TV shows is really that big of a deal and if anything grants the products more exposure. I download lots of music but i havent stopped buying records, actually i buy more records now because i can download music and listen to it first same with movies and as for TV shows well since each episode is usually a one shot deal as far as money spent and money made in advertising i dont think anyone really loses out if someone downloads an episode of some show that they missed i think the piracy thing has been blown way out of proportion by corporate greed

[Azekiel]

I just dont think that people downloadin music, movies and TV shows is really that big of a deal and if anything grants the products more exposure. I download lots of music but i havent stopped buying records, actually i buy more records now because i can download music and listen to it first same with movies and as for TV shows well since each episode is usually a one shot deal as far as money spent and money made in advertising i dont think anyone really loses out if someone downloads an episode of some show that they missed i think the piracy thing has been blown way out of proportion by corporate greed

you buy movies you've already downloaded? I have heard a lot of people use this argument, then when you ask they struggle to remember the last album they actually paid retail value for. No, downloading one show that you missed isn't going to do anyone that much damage, but who does that? pick a message board and start a discussion of cartoons people like - within the first dozen posts will be someone talking about how they have an 80 Gig HD full of them. Yes, there is a lot of Corporate greed in this world. but Corporate greed is just the greed of lots of indivuals all rolled into one lump, and pretty much everyone is part of some Corporate entity or other. individuals can be just as greedy on their own. it starts as a trickle - the odd song by a band you like, the odd show, a film you've never got around to going to see... and yeah, you go buy the rest of the album, tune into the next show, get the sequel out on video, but eventually you just finish one song/show/film and just go back to the same place looking for next... and that way lies the Dark Side young Padawan.

[Tequila Zaire]

Although I understand your specific point, I have heard this argument applied in many ways to the entertainment industry, all to justify rampant disregard for intelectual property laws and the spirit they are trying to protect. I can't rob a bank and simply explain that the banking industry just needs to get used to the fact that keeping money in a vault is just so 1900's and that since it's insured, I'm not really hurting anybody's bottom line. Sure, business should evolve, but that doesn't mean anyone can come along, question their methods without a offering a viable and perhaps better solution, and simply gank what they want in the mean time. Digital theft is a huge issue and it really does hurt somebody's bottom line.

Theft is always going to be a part of pretty much every industry...but music and TV seem to be the slowest to react and the most utterly stupid to educate. What they don't understand is most people do not want to steal their product they just don't use technology the way their parents did. Look at on demand movies that most major cable companies offer. You buy the movie with a click of your remote and you can pretty much use it like you would when renting a movie from a normal store. How did they think people wouldn't want that for TV? More so why did they think the practice of recording TV shows to watch them later would NOT carry over from the VCR days? It's these little things that annoy tech junkies and customers alike. They keep assuming we want to steal and resell their product when all we want to do is watch their product at a time when we CAN watch it. It's as though they would rather you NOT watch their show if you can't see it at the specific time they say so. That's old and ancient thinking that needs to change. People hate commercials yet all they do is manage to push them into more and more areas. It's fucking pathetic I have to see commecials for women's makeup when I go see a movie.

Music is similar...they ignored the changing technology and got burned hard cause of it. Recordable CD's "hurt" them just ad bad as MP3's. So did cassettes...and records killed radio...every new technology "destroys" them. It's getting too old of an argument to take it seriously anymore. Plus the companies that OWN them are the ones who released the technology to the general public anyhow.

It's not about wanting to damage their bottom line it's about them catching up with technology and figuring out how to make it profitable and usefull for them...they've done it before and I am sure they can do it again...people just aren't going to wait 10 years for them to do it is all. Let alone allow them to dicate what should and shouldn't go in MY computer.

[Tequila Zaire]

you buy movies you've already downloaded? I have heard a lot of people use this argument, then when you ask they struggle to remember the last album they actually paid retail value for.

If you're talking CD's...yeah it is getting hard. Mainly because they are more of a hassle than anything. More so if you are fully digital and simply hate having to rip a CD to the exacting quality you want or bypass it's copy protection. I simply no longer use CD's as my main form of music and I use many sites to get my music already encoded. Not alone in that either...their is also so much music out there that the reality is to really expose yourself to it one almost HAS to find alternative methods...cause at $10 to $20 a CD for a band you like is not so big of a deal...$10 to $20 on a band you've never heard of is quite alot to ask. Especially when you're talking about 30 to 50 bands...with cheap downloads many more bands could get exposure and build up a fanbase...or if not that some diffrent way for people to listen to their music. Streaming off a website, net radio station, etc. To stick with the CD and the rediculous prices so places want to charge...is just not working. Obviously I'm not alone in that cause year after year all the major music shops I go to are either closing down or have no one really there. DVD sales skyrocket however...and nearly all say it's due to what you get and the quality of the package. A this point CD's should be at the MOST $10 with full 5.1 or DTS sound and loads of extras...not just a fucking stereo mix, a booklet of lyrics and if your lucky a video.

No, downloading one show that you missed isn't going to do anyone that much damage, but who does that? pick a message board and start a discussion of cartoons people like - within the first dozen posts will be someone talking about how they have an 80 Gig HD full of them.

And that's a problem why? People did the same with VHS tapes. Anime, Comic, and Sci-Fi conventions where (and still are) notorious for that practice. Every anime convention I went to as a kid and teen pretty much exposed me to new stuff through the tapes people had and shared. Granted I used Hentai tapes to later trade for goods I wanted but that's not all that rare anyhow. The benefit was obviously there since you had people buying tons of merchandise from the shows, animation cells, and HIGH quality laser discs. Now the same occurs with DVD's but many still buy the legit DVD's provided they are Good Quality, Good Sound, and have Good extra's...like most of the Pioneer Anime DVD's. You'd be quite surprised how having insane collections on HD's actually benefits a series...it did so for the anime series Naruto that does not even air here and is doing so for The O.C. which along with many watching at the time it airs is traded heavily online. Plus I love the fact I can trade american shows for weird Japanese ones for example. It's a great way to SEE more stuff not just what we're allowed to see via channel programming schedules.

Yes, there is a lot of Corporate greed in this world. but Corporate greed is just the greed of lots of indivuals all rolled into one lump, and pretty much everyone is part of some Corporate entity or other. individuals can be just as greedy on their own. it starts as a trickle - the odd song by a band you like, the odd show, a film you've never got around to going to see... and yeah, you go buy the rest of the album, tune into the next show, get the sequel out on video, but eventually you just finish one song/show/film and just go back to the same place looking for next... and that way lies the Dark Side young Padawan.

See that's not the case though. If you have a person exposed to something new that they never would have been exposed to before then THAT is the real value. If TV shows make their money of viewers then that right their is a benefit. Bands make money off their touring so if people start goign to see them live then that is also a benefit. What is getting lost is that all this leads to exposure and new people supporting or ignoring what they are exposed too. The number who simply collect it all is not all that high unless you get to the FTP clubs that have massive gigs...and they are usually only amassing those collection to trade with...the center of this "evil" practice really. No longer as important as they use to be though thanks to BT.

Cowboy Bebop got great exposure on the Cartoon Network and pushed DVD sales...even though the series was from the late 90's and had been traded like mad on VHS and bootlegged DVD's before that. Many of the popular anime's only came to the state because the fanbase was their from the bootlegging scene. Same now goes for many of the fansub and trading that goes online...most recently Full Metal Alchemist...it was traded HEAVILY before the U.S. airing. As a result of ALL this trading MORE Anime gets shipped to the states on DVD and sales continue to go up...

TV DVD's are exploding in popularity as a result of ALL the sharing of TV show files...now long forgotten classics and entertaining if not groundbreaking shows are hitting the scene one season at a time. It's what pushed so many new shows to hit DVD...and they been better off for it.

Is all this stuff pirated? Yeah...no one said it wouldn't...but If you keep an eye out on what's being traded HEAVILY it's usually stuff not on DVD for sale...rarely the stuff that is anymore. It's MUCH cheapr to buy the entire Season 3 of 24 in it's HIGH quality packaging nad presentation than to keep those files on your HD. That's another big thing that get forgotten. People Do buy shows they like much more than is being admitted. I had the ENTIRE Gundam Wing anime on my HD before CN even bothered to pick it up. I deleted it all once the High quality DVD's hit the street. You see thos more and more too...stuff that was easy to get online drops once the legit stuff is out.

Sure you COULD keep it all on your HD like I did the adult swim stuff before it hit DVD but the quality is just not there and many see it the same way. Once the DVD's are out it's hard to justify keeping the old files...even when like the Naruto stuff...are really really good.

Music has a similar problem...I could go to AllofMp3.com and buy music literally in BULK and try out new bands, listen to favourites, and amass a music collection into the dozens of gigs. $15 buys a tonf of music on that site...yet buying all that music in stores would be nearly impossible so one tends to stay with what they know or genres they are sure they will like. Radio is simply not as diverse at it should be and neither is TV...so many bands are usaully known only in the genre or scene they are popular in...and if you are not into that or hell may not have even known of it...you have a problem...and so does music as a whole. Allowing people to quite literally buy music by the HUNDREDS of tracks not just 10 or 15 a CD would easily expose more artists to people...and if the retail format was HIGHER in quality than the MP3, WMA, OGG, etc file...then you have something interesting brewing. It'd rather see THAT happen than to kill off sites liek allofmp3 and continue with the CD...

While 5.1 DVD music CD's exist they are actually MORE expensive than normal DVD's...that's the music industry being fucking idiots again like they where with EVERY HIGH QUALITY FORMAT since the 90's...from surrrond sound CD's to the latest 5.1 and DTS stuff...they just hate change and that simply is not an option anymore.

[Mr Karl]

I actually like to buy the real thing, they worked, I liked it , and I paid for it, because I worked and someone paid me, of course if it wasn't for pirating, I wouldn't have heard of a lot of things

[ForrestBlack]

Theft is always going to be a part of pretty much every industry...but music and TV seem to be the slowest to react and the most utterly stupid to educate. What they don't understand is most people do not want to steal their product they just don't use technology the way their parents did. Look at on demand movies that most major cable companies offer. You buy the movie with a click of your remote and you can pretty much use it like you would when renting a movie from a normal store. How did they think people wouldn't want that for TV? More so why did they think the practice of recording TV shows to watch them later would NOT carry over from the VCR days? It's these little things that annoy tech junkies and customers alike. They keep assuming we want to steal and resell their product when all we want to do is watch their product at a time when we CAN watch it. It's as though they would rather you NOT watch their show if you can't see it at the specific time they say so. That's old and ancient thinking that needs to change. People hate commercials yet all they do is manage to push them into more and more areas. It's fucking pathetic I have to see commecials for women's makeup when I go see a movie.

Tivo is in talks again with cable operators, like Comcast, to provide the software and infrastructure to run the DVR technology that is being built into the next generation of cable boxes. Just because it takes a little while to hash these things out doesn't mean that it's ok to put your favorite shows up for redistribution on p2p networks or bittorrent or whatever. It's hard to respect the individuals implied right to back up their own digital entertainment when so many people violate the spirit of that protection by redistributing everything they can get their hands on. Entertainment isn't free to produce, yet more and more people reject any model that covers the costs with commercial advertising and they reject any model where you would have to pay for the entertainment directly, be it CD sales, DVD sales, VOD, or whatever. The entertainment industry has thieves stealing out of every door and window, yet people complain that they are somewhat boggled about the best response. My feeling is that a good first step would be for individuals to at least admit to themselves that they are the greedy ones that use any number of excuses to justify theft.

It's not about wanting to damage their bottom line it's about them catching up with technology and figuring out how to make it profitable and useful for them...they've done it before and I am sure they can do it again...people just aren't going to wait 10 years for them to do it is all. Let alone allow them to dictate what should and shouldn't go in MY computer.

I don't think ticks want to kill their host either, but at the rate that things are made available for free, it's hard for the industry to stay healthy. That hurts bands, it hurts film makers, and it makes the producers way more likely to only greenlight really solid, non-risky, most common denominator mainstream products. It's a safer risk to take. People wonder why so much music is being released for the 12-14 teenybopper set, well, it's because those folks by and large don't steal all their music, yet.

Sure, I don't want some secret tracking chip in my PC either, but having heard a zillion people tell me all about how information wants to be free, I certainly understand why the industries have given up on waiting for Joe Public to be responsible. Now we get the backlash.

[Morning Glory]

how can you call us greedy and theives for wanting what is basically our constitutional right in the first place and that is free media? free press means free media. telling people that they can't distribute any means of information, even if it's digital, is as much violation of that as banning people from what content they can exchange in writing on paper. growing technology doesn't negate the core existance of what a democratic society should be, if anything it should serve to further it.

I hear this argument all the time "but it costs money to do this and that, so how can we give it away for free?" once again it's replacing one thing with another and using a negative outcome to justify negativity, disguised as common morality or whatever. before you accept profit margins as the word of GOD, why don't you question who made it that way in the first place? It was greed and theft that made things that once were free no longer free, so that people could profit from them. The system doesn't justify itself. and again and again it comes back to the question of media and art. Do we only make art, do we only express human feeling through music, through acting, through writing, because we profit from it? or is being able to do what we love doing justification enough for it?

If not, then it is just a system of greed and theft, and that's the only thing that's exchanged. all else is just a means to serve the bottom line at all costs. In such a system where the only purpose is to do what's best for ME then why should I not steal from anyone and everyone else? after all thier production is the same ethic and isn't really based on distribution at all.

[Kidthorazine]

how can you call us greedy and theives for wanting what is basically our constitutional right in the first place and that is free media? free press means free media. telling people that they can't distribute any means of information, even if it's digital, is as much violation of that as banning people from what content they can exchange in writing on paper. growing technology doesn't negate the core existance of what a democratic society should be, if anything it should serve to further it.

I hear this argument all the time "but it costs money to do this and that, so how can we give it away for free?" once again it's replacing one thing with another and using a negative outcome to justify negativity, disguised as common morality or whatever. before you accept profit margins as the word of GOD, why don't you question who made it that way in the first place? It was greed and theft that made things that once were free no longer free, so that people could profit from them. The system doesn't justify itself. and again and again it comes back to the question of media and art. Do we only make art, do we only express human feeling through music, through acting, through writing, because we profit from it? or is being able to do what we love doing justification enough for it?

If not, then it is just a system of greed and theft, and that's the only thing that's exchanged. all else is just a means to serve the bottom line at all costs. In such a system where the only purpose is to do what's best for ME then why should I not steal from anyone and everyone else? after all thier production is the same ethic and isn't really based on distribution at all.

I think you are forgetting about the principle of intelectual property.

[23*]

i guess i'm going out on a limb here but I don't give a fuck about the legal process regarding music.

Cds here are so expensive, a new CD will cost about 18 Euro (around 23 dollars). Now why should a minimum wage motherfucker like me pay out of my hole for something which cost next to nothing to produce. If I knew that the money would go towards providing the artist with the same wage everyone else should be getting (including the bin collectors & fast food clerks) I'd pay up. I don't think the musician is doing anything more important than me or them so why should he/she get paid more? As for the record company execs...fuck them.

I'm going to pay as little for my music as possible. Period.

[chaosfeary]

What I cannot stand is that the Sky+ satellite service is about £600 (+-$1100) a year here, but it there are still at least 300 long seconds of corporate brandings being shoved in your face every fifteen minutes.

It's not just 'consumers' that are greedy, companies will continue to force people to watch advertising if they can get away with it, and they can so long as people are prepared to sit down and let them.

One of the biggest threats, as identified by the UK media regulator Ofcom's chief, Stephen Carter, is "hard-disc recorders which let viewers choose what they wanted to watch and when" (source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/4334093.stm).
It's nothing to do with the rare few who have the technical knowledge to spread TV shows on peer to peer programs, they want your your eyes on their ads and anything that empowers the viewer to watch what THEY want is seen as a "threat".

Maybe with terrestrial TV the ads are needed (although I'm not sure of the system in the USA but here you need to pay a 'tv license' to legally own and operate a television, but it's not much), but with satellite or cable TV companies the constant advertising is just pure greed in action.

[Ellis]

That whole situation sounds pretty fucked. TV liscence my ass.

[Ellis]

Morning Glory, good arguement, I have to agree with you in a way.
Basically I pirate by virtue of the fact that Icannot possibly buy everything I need. Its the same reason I shoplift. music is as important to me as food. Without it Ill die. If I really like the artist, and I think I would be listening to the music if Id bought it, I generally buy or steal a copy, just to justify it. (obviously stealing a copy isjust losing them more money, thats kinda the point) Piracy eventually willget to a point where it willhave to become preventable. At that point, bands that care will make it impossible to pirate, and bands that CARE will make it accessable to pirate.

My true hope is that bands might,I dont know, have to TOUR to make money *gasp* if they arent making as much from the CDs.

[Morning Glory]

pretty everyone on here admits that they pirate, and that they will pay for something if they like it. i've heard so many times "i'll download a song here and there, if I like the cd i'll go out and buy it". I think that is the case in most of these acts of "piracy". So it seems to me that it's a double edged sword created by the record companies, as someone pointed out to make a profit they have to produce "safe" records for teenagers, but that is a direct result of them NOT putting out enough creative material that people will want to buy, in the first place. maybe if they worked as hard at making good shit as they do at keeping people from downloading music, they'd sell more cds.

[Tequila Zaire]

I think you are forgetting about the principle of intelectual property.

None of us are forgetting it...the principle is however being abused to the 10th power and used as an excuse to pass laws that should be illegal. When the RIAA can do things the FBI can't...we have a problem.

No one is ever going to convince me the RIAA and MPAA are acting on good merits. The MPAA says movie piracy is ruining the industry...yet they are owned by mega corporations that contribute to it and in all truth college kids downloading Staw Wars Episode Whatever are not the problem. In Asia where most of the major piracy is done it's all usually because of corrupt Governments and organized crime. Why don't they fight that? Because those who make the biggest stink know they'd get killed. Yet these organizations buy the equipment needed from the companies that own these "intellectual proporties" and 9 out of 10 times get the masters they use from inside men.

That's not being addressed to talked about in public...but some 12 year old girl who downloaded a bunch of awful pop tunes is sued? That's going too far and I can't support that at all.

Disney alone has manipulated and dragged copyright laws into areas they were never suppose to go in...and the irony is that company got it's start on what once once OTHER peoples "intellectual property"...had it not been for public domain MANY Disney Classics never would have seen the light of day. These companies are forgetting how many GREAT things come from public domain and looser copyright laws. I'm not saying I should be able to sell bootlegged copies of top gun...but I should be able to rip it and put it on a memory stick so I cna watch it on my PSP on the go...LEGALLY...not go through the hoops I have to right now with nearly a half dozen programs.

If they are going to assume we're all thieves right off the bat then it's hard not to just act like one and accept it...lately it's as if I don't even OWN the dvd's I've bought...but rented them. I may not OWN Kill Bill the film...but I own the fucking DVD and should be able to use it as I wish so long as I don't make money off it.

[mollycase]

i guess i'm going out on a limb here but I don't give a fuck about the legal process regarding music.

Cds here are so expensive, a new CD will cost about 18 Euro (around 23 dollars). Now why should a minimum wage motherfucker like me pay out of my hole for something which cost next to nothing to produce. If I knew that the money would go towards providing the artist with the same wage everyone else should be getting (including the bin collectors & fast food clerks) I'd pay up. I don't think the musician is doing anything more important than me or them so why should he/she get paid more? As for the record company execs...fuck them.

I'm going to pay as little for my music as possible. Period.

I understand stealing something you want when you can't afford it. Maybe it is not right but most people do it sometimes.

It makes me sad that you feel like the artists and the people who support the artists should not be able to benefit from putting music out there.

I would steal a muffin if I were hungry and I thought I could get away with it but I would not be angry that the baker and the flour distributor sometimes got paid for their labors.

[Tequila Zaire]

I understand stealing something you want when you can't afford it. Maybe it is not right but most people do it sometimes.

It makes me sad that you feel like the artists and the people who support the artists should not be able to benefit from putting music out there.

I would steal a muffin if I were hungry and I thought I could get away with it but I would not be angry that the baker and the flour distributor sometimes got paid for their labors.

If only that was the case...but given that the RIAA alone has kept CD prices inflated on purpose for years after they should have dropped them...it's hard to support it anymore. They purposely screwed people AND artists with such prices. High proces do no encourage people to try new artists or labels...it keeps money with the big named artists and genres people already like. Their is simply no reason CD costs should be at the price they are. Plus most of the money does not go to the artist or those near them...it stays at the top and lawyers fighting to protect this sick system.

When the industry starts goign after their customers...all hope and respect is lost. They sued college kids and actual kids for christs sake...at this point...fuck em.

[Amelia G]

pretty everyone on here admits that they pirate, and that they will pay for something if they like it. i've heard so many times "i'll download a song here and there, if I like the cd i'll go out and buy it". I think that is the case in most of these acts of "piracy". So it seems to me that it's a double edged sword created by the record companies, as someone pointed out to make a profit they have to produce "safe" records for teenagers, but that is a direct result of them NOT putting out enough creative material that people will want to buy, in the first place. maybe if they worked as hard at making good shit as they do at keeping people from downloading music, they'd sell more cds.

Actually I have never downloaded a pirated song. Not ever. Not once.

This might be off-topic, but a piracy thing which bothers me is the way people tend to steal the photographs Forrest and I shoot. They never just take a photo and display it and tell all their friends they think we are great. They always try to make a buck off of it and Forrest and I don't even try to make anything monetary off of most of what we shoot.

If I spend a lot of money I had to work a job I most likely did not enjoy in order to fund an art project and some record label or whatever tries to steal the photos I created to sell their products and they don't even give me or Forrest credit for what we created, it really hurts me.

It hurts me in a way which damages my artistic spirit when someone takes something I am sharing for free and tries to turn it into their own commercial enterprise presenting my work in a very different way from how it was intended to be shown when Forrest and I created it. Just thought I'd share my feelings on this sort of thing. Theft of intellectual property is not always about money at all.

[mollycase]

If only that was the case...but given that the RIAA alone has kept CD prices inflated on purpose for years after they should have dropped them...it's hard to support it anymore. They purposely screwed people AND artists with such prices. High proces do no encourage people to try new artists or labels...it keeps money with the big named artists and genres people already like. Their is simply no reason CD costs should be at the price they are. Plus most of the money does not go to the artist or those near them...it stays at the top and lawyers fighting to protect this sick system.

When the industry starts goign after their customers...all hope and respect is lost. They sued college kids and actual kids for christs sake...at this point...fuck em.

Should a baker let seventh graders come into his shop every day and steal muffins because their allowances are not quite enough to cover how many muffins they like to eat?

How many muffins should the seventh graders be able to steal before the baker calls the police?

[mollycase]

Actually I have never downloaded a pirated song. Not ever. Not once.

This might be off-topic, but a piracy thing which bothers me is the way people tend to steal the photographs Forrest and I shoot. They never just take a photo and display it and tell all their friends they think we are great. They always try to make a buck off of it and Forrest and I don't even try to make anything monetary off of most of what we shoot.

If I spend a lot of money I had to work a job I most likely did not enjoy in order to fund an art project and some record label or whatever tries to steal the photos I created to sell their products and they don't even give me or Forrest credit for what we created, it really hurts me.

It hurts me in a way which damages my artistic spirit when someone takes something I am sharing for free and tries to turn it into their own commercial enterprise presenting my work in a very different way from how it was intended to be shown when Forrest and I created it. Just thought I'd share my feelings on this sort of thing. Theft of intellectual property is not always about money at all.

Everybody in the scene knows that you and Forrest give more back to your community for free than anyone else in it.

I really don't think anyone here is talking about the sort of people who try to resell art they steal from real people like you and Forrest who show so much of it for free.

I think the main point of discussion is large corporations where it is difficult to see the face of who a theft is hurting and large corporations where profit is the main motive.

[23*]

It makes me sad that you feel like the artists and the people who support the artists should not be able to benefit from putting music out there.

I would steal a muffin if I were hungry and I thought I could get away with it but I would not be angry that the baker and the flour distributor sometimes got paid for their labors.

I never said this.

If someone makes good music then they'll earn my respect and i'll happily give them my money; within reason. The rubbish collector and waitress provide a service that i need; i pay them for their service and i respect their job positions.

I don't think musicians should be put on a pedestal however and i certainly hate to see the ridiculous & downright greedy prices they often charge for concert tickets (in addition to whatever abomination the event managers charge on top).

[mollycase]

I never said this.

If someone makes good music then they'll earn my respect and i'll happily give them my money, within reason. The rubbish collector and waitress provide a service that i need; i pay them for their service and i respect their job positions.

I don't think musicians should be put on a pedestal however and i certainly hate to see the ridiculous & downright greedy prices they often charge for concert tickets (in addition to whatever abomination the event managers charge on top).

How do you expect the event to happen without an event manager?

How is the event manager supposed to pay for his rubbish collection and waitressing services if he is not permitted to make anything for his labor?

The simple fact is that the cost of making a compact disk is not just the cost of the plastic or whatever compact disks are made of.

I don't always like the TV execs I have to deal with for my job. I feel like they don't understand what it is like to be a creative person as well as I would like them too. Some of them are not the nicest people.

I am under no illusion that I could put on a television show on my own without the hard work those people put into the process.

[23*]

and you dont think its disproportional ????

a concert ticket can cost 80 Euro per person and thats before it goes to the black market...

[mollycase]

and you dont think its disproportional ????

Actually I don't really. Most television execs make more than I do. My creativity may have more impact on how a particular episode of a particular show turns out but it is the execs who make the show possible at all.

I like to think I'm a pretty good writer, maybe even a really good writer. I am under no illusion that I could not be replaced more easily than a really good producer. I might not like that. I might like to think that I'm more special than that because I'm the artistic one. There are a lot more good writers who want to work than there are good producers who can make a show happen.

I don't know as much about music but I believe that the situation is similar.

What do you think would be in better proportion?

[ForrestBlack]

Theft is theft. Bob doesn't get to open the books on Nike Corp. to see if the shoes he stole from NikeTown hurt them financially or helped them through the exposure of their product being on his feet. The store says don't walk off with our product and if he chooses to do just that, he is a thief. If a band distributes a song for free, that's all well and good, but if they ask you to support them by purchasing their album and you choose to enjoy the album for free and share it with 100,000 of you closest friends, no amount of smug ill informed armchair economics makes that anything but theft.

If someone has a better business model, they are encouraged to try things their way, or at the very least advocate a better way, but all I keep hearing is I want something for nothing because I'm mad or whatever.

Commercial Radio is in my opinion brilliant. Does it serve all needs? No, certainly not, but it is somewhat free and exposes artists to many many people. The cost is covered by the commecials, and the artists feel that distributing a sample hit single will encourage people to check out the whole album and/or perhaps see them live. It is a fair deal and doesn't cost the public at all.

Bootleggers used to set up shop by the metro stops and they would frequenly get arrested, as they should, so now that p2p has cut out the middle man, why is it such a tradgedy that college students or whatever get in trouble for redistributing thousands of times the volume the bootleggers did in digital entertainment they didn't have the rights to either?

[Tequila Zaire]

Should a baker let seventh graders come into his shop every day and steal muffins because their allowances are not quite enough to cover how many muffins they like to eat?

How many muffins should the seventh graders be able to steal before the baker calls the police?

If the baker is charging $20 a muffin and targetting said kids as his customers...it's a bit hard to have sympathy if they steal it. The RIAA is a racket...a legitimized criminal scam...they use all their might to make people want a certain product in a certain way and cut out any competition while at the same time keeping their product at an insane level of cost. The RIAA is not about art...it's about royally fucking over those who make music in the best possible way and nothing will stop them from it unless the ENTIRE distribution of music and it's cost changes.

They got cocky and it turned out to happen right under them.

[23*]

...doctors still get better wages than nurses and nurses still get better wages then waitresses....

Its basically a class system. A doctor should get paid no more than a carpenter, a carpenter no more than a television executive. We place false emphisis on certain careers.

What do I think would be in better proportion?
I think that the musican and the event manager should be able to earn enough money to have a comfortable home and provide for their families just like everyone else should be.

So your Execs spent a few more years in college then you did...so what??...as long as they are working the same hours they should be paid the same wage. We put a disproportionate weight on the whole college graduate thing.

i guess i went of on a bit of a tangent here.

[mollycase]

...doctors still get better wages than nurses and nurses still get better wages then waitresses....

Its basically a class system. A doctor should get paid no more than a carpenter, a carpenter no more than a television executive. We place false emphisis on certain careers.

What do I think would be in better proportion?
I think that the musican and the event manager should be able to earn enough money to have a comfortable home and provide for their families just like everyone else should be.

So your Execs spent a few more years in college then you did...so what??...as long as they are working the same hours they should be paid the same wage. We put a disproportionate weight on the whole college graduate thing.

i guess i went of on a bit of a tangent here.

If someone works for more years to prepare for a job shouldn't they be compensated for those years?

I probably have as much education as most television execs. I just do a job where I am more easily replaced than they are.

It is difficult to gauge how many hours a writer works. Sometimes I am working on a script in my head while I am staring out the window. I would rather be compensated for what I produce. I have a serious illness which makes me wholly unable to work some days but I am fortunate to have skills which are sufficiently in demand and a job which is sufficiently flexible, not to mention a wonderful and hard-working husband, so that I have a comfortable enough life and my dog has a little bit of lawn to play on.

Doctors keep me having a mostly functional and productive life despite serious illness. That is far more valuable than anything a carpenter could ever do for me.

Despite all my education I was below the poverty line for years while I built up the writing credits needed to get the attention of the television execs who could make it all happen for me.

I have had some hard times and I have had some wonderful luck. When I was below the poverty line I sometimes took things I felt I needed and could get away with taking but I never tried to tell myself that wasn't stealing and I stopped doing it as soon as I could afford to.

[Tequila Zaire]

Commercial Radio is in my opinion brilliant. Does it serve all needs? No, certainly not, but it is somewhat free and exposes artists to many many people. The cost is covered by the commecials, and the artists feel that distributing a sample hit single will encourage people to check out the whole album and/or perhaps see them live. It is a fair deal and doesn't cost the public at all.

How is that a brilliant idea? It's corrput and controlled by record labels who make sure only what they want on their air hits the air...look how they systematicly destroyed internet radio, look how they keep more aritst OFF the airwaves than on. They only let on what makes them a profit and even in the most progrssive of stations they still have to deal with those who control the industry at it's core. Plus they are just as bad with blackmailing artists to appear at their fucking sponsored festivals, inane morning shows, and using their bit of freedom allowed by laws supposedly kill off the "Paylola" days to be just as evil. It's a corrupt and bloated system that needs it's execution.

Bootleggers used to set up shop by the metro stops and they would frequenly get arrested, as they should, so now that p2p has cut out the middle man, why is it such a tradgedy that college students or whatever get in trouble for redistributing thousands of times the volume the bootleggers did in digital entertainment they didn't have the rights to either?

That's the thing...the volume produces no profit. Those who bootlegged in the old days did so for profit. They still do. They are so good at it now few can tell the legit from the fake...M$ kept some serious problems they had with authentication under wraps and the RIAA has done the same as have their counterparts world wide....what is angering is that THEY support the piracy by cutting backroom deals. A guy selling lame lil pirated copies is one thing...but thousnads of bootlegged copies sold as legit to major retail outlets around the world is another...it does happen. It's what keeps the money flowing if they can use piracy to their advantage...and they have.

Walk into any major music shop and you will be hard pressed to find it all their legitimately. It's as corrupt as any other buisness. CD's that never find their way on the floor unless a kickback is agreed on, CD's that are "lost" through assorted means and find their way on the streets, Entire shipments redirected to stores who can sell them off fast yet never seem to have customers buying them.

With the suggested retail of $20...and cost of production known to be less than a $1 yet many feel it's even in the low cents...leaves a big door to grow all sorts of scams. Hell if a CD costs 5 cents...and you can set deals that make you a hard $5 to $10 of pure profit...with less than a $1 of it going to the artist...

Who would want to see that end? It's not about art anymore people it's hard numbers...it's like Casino's...they want as much cash as possible. Piracy does not harm them as much as many feel it does...it's a fucking smoke screen used to screw with the numbers and keep the IRS and similar organizations at bay. It's a beautiful way to keep the accounting from looking as crooked as it is.

It's not about intellectual property...it's not about the artist...it's not even about music...it's about keeping a racket going. That's it.

[mollycase]

If the baker is charging $20 a muffin and targetting said kids as his customers...it's a bit hard to have sympathy if they steal it. The RIAA is a racket...a legitimized criminal scam...they use all their might to make people want a certain product in a certain way and cut out any competition while at the same time keeping their product at an insane level of cost. The RIAA is not about art...it's about royally fucking over those who make music in the best possible way and nothing will stop them from it unless the ENTIRE distribution of music and it's cost changes.

They got cocky and it turned out to happen right under them.

Most musicians I meet don't seem like they are doing that well and most music execs I meet don't seem like they are doing nearly as well as the people I usually work for. I don't really know much about music but the people involved don't seem like they have so much fat they could cut out and the money has to come from somewhere to cut prices.

I am honestly worried that the work for television writing may dry up with some of the new business models. I have a limited skill set. I could probably write other things but most other types of writing do not pay a living wage. I am female. I am not young. I am not healthy. I am not thin. I probably wouldn't be able to do anything else successfully.

I enjoy Tivo and hope it will provide a new method for people to pay for good television. It would be wonderful if this improved the overall quality of television programming. I am scared that really this will just lead to more piracy and I will not be able to find work any more.

[ForrestBlack]

...doctors still get better wages than nurses and nurses still get better wages then waitresses....

Its basically a class system. A doctor should get paid no more than a carpenter, a carpenter no more than a television executive. We place false emphisis on certain careers.

Why would anyone bother to be a Doctor then? If the easy road and the hard road were equally rewarding, I can tell you which road most would take. Hell, most people take the easy road even though they know it's not going to be as rewarding already.

A carpenter makes decent money, and if they are good and bother to learn a lot, they will make forman, and make more, and soon they will run the contracting business and make more money, hopefully. Not everyone succeeds, but the dream is to better yourself and your situation. What good could come from incenting people to be big lazy losers? Would that make a happier planet? Even in a communist system, you still had theives that felt that they were not given their fair share, so it was ok, in their mind, to rob and extort the innocent hardworking people around them.

What do I think would be in better proportion?
I think that the musican and the event manager should be able to earn enough money to have a comfortable home and provide for their families just like everyone else should be.

So your Execs spent a few more years in college then you did...so what??...as long as they are working the same hours they should be paid the same wage. We put a disproportionate weight on the whole college graduate thing.

i guess i went of on a bit of a tangent here.

How many albums does the average band put out? How many albums is the average music exec responsible for putting out? I know how much effort goes into cutting an ok album, sure it's some work, but not nearly as much as some people make it out to be. Bands think they just need to lay down twelve tracks and then they should live in the Hollywood hills for life. They point at management when it's time to get tough on theft because it would hurt their image to be seen going after their so-called fans. I've seen management work day and night to help promote dozens of bands. Publicity departments writing far more eloquently than the lyrics on some of the albums they are promoting. It takes hundreds, if not thousands, of people to provide the support structure for a successful band. Should these people do it all for free because some cheapo noticed that it took fifteen cents worth of plastic and paper to manifest the album in physical form?

[Tequila Zaire]

Most musicians I meet don't seem like they are doing that well and most music execs I meet don't seem like they are doing nearly as well as the people I usually work for. I don't really know much about music but the people involved don't seem like they have so much fat they could cut out and the money has to come from somewhere to cut prices.

I am honestly worried that the work for television writing may dry up with some of the new business models. I have a limited skill set. I could probably write other things but most other types of writing do not pay a living wage. I am female. I am not young. I am not healthy. I am not thin. I probably wouldn't be able to do anything else successfully.

I enjoy Tivo and hope it will provide a new method for people to pay for good television. It would be wonderful if this improved the overall quality of television programming. I am scared that really this will just lead to more piracy and I will not be able to find work any more.

All these same worries came from the Blank VHS and Blank Cassette days...same with early cable showing movies. "No one would go to the movies anymore" and "not so many new movies will be made now that people can watch all the old ones easily"...same things were said when TV itself first came to life..."The movies are over".

All of that EXPLODED due to such technologies and it will happen again ...we're going to see more music, more tv, and more commercials...only in non traditional ways and in non traditional means.

A product survives by people wanting it...look at Family Guy...syndication and piracy brought it back from the dead ...a format that stuidos fought to KILL (the DVD) made it a monster hit than it was when it came out.

Can't fear technology...one should embrace it for what it can do if left to grow and evolve as it should.

[Tequila Zaire]

I've seen management work day and night to help promote dozens of bands. Publicity departments writing far more eloquently than the lyrics on some of the albums they are promoting. It takes hundreds, if not thousands, of people to provide the support structure for a successful band. Should these people do it all for free because some cheapo noticed that it took fifteen cents worth of plastic and paper to manifest the album in physical form?

The physical form is what counts...the final product is all anyone cares about...not about what it took and who it took to get there. If it takes so many damned people to do the job then their is a serious problem with the entire industry. They should have embraced the digital distribution method to cut the fat...if you need so many people to keep a band successful...then it is either profitable enough even WITH the piracy to keep it alive...or it's simply not true. Look at bands who've gained popularity by going from the studio to the net...or really only gained popularity and attention BECAUSE of people sharing their music.

If an industry is so bloated that it needs so much to keep their procuct afloat and that a simple technology they WERE TOLD ABOUT YEARS BEFORE can kill then...then again...fuck em. None and I mean NONE of their past "Industry destorying" fears have come true...all of it helped make them MORE money...

They're just pissed they haven't found the magic way to do it yet and are getting impatient.