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Re: Duff: Quit Whining About SOPA and PIPA
It's all bullshit anyway, I mean those of us who upload music and share with others mostly buy the music in the first place. We share with people because we love the music. This shit is getting out of control, I understand that it pisses band. singers or whatever off, but they aren't losing as much money as they complain about, besides after someone downloads some artist music there's a good chance they will actually buy it.
It goes both ways. I know probably 6-10 people who haven't paid for music in a decade because they can get it free now. I know significantly more than that who casually download occasionally.
If most people know similiar numbers they're probably losing more than it seems to most of us. Although I think everyone would agree even with all the torrent sites it's not anywhere close to what it was back when Napster, etc. were in their hayday.
Re: Duff: Quit Whining About SOPA and PIPA
polluxlm wrote:Copying is not stealing. It's just copying.
That is true for the honourable people that then go and pay for everything they copied.
However in the instances where this doesn't occur, you have taken for free a product produced by an artist who wanted to be paid for it. Call it what you want but it's immoral.Radio taping wasn't as bad because the copies were inherently inferior to vinyl (and subsequently CD) so it didn't discourage legitimate purchases to the extent that torrenting a lossless exact replica of a professional product someone else bought does.
No and no. First of all, you're not stealing anything if the other person is not losing anything. Equating piracy to stealing is like equating yelling at someone to beating the crap out of them... both of them might not be much fun but I think we both agree they're in a different ball-park altogether. There's nothing actually lost in the case of sharing (which is a much less negatively charged word for "piracy").
Second, technology is always going to progress beyond what you can predict so using that as a benchmark for what is legal and what is not is not a good place to start from.
Maybe a bit of a history lesson is in order... 'cause what most people seem to forget is that the only reason why copying music seems to have lost public moral support is because for a very long time they (the industry) controlled the entire supply chain and duplicating anything without their permission in an acceptable quality was basically impossible. Along came the compact cassette, the miniDisc, the CD-R and eventually the internet and changed that. At that point, there was a whole period in time during which technology existed to copy without any specific laws against it (except basic copyright law). Industry started lobbying the US government to do something about the unauthorized copying and reselling of their music (rightfully so), hoping it would have the collateral impact of wiping out sharing as well (wrongfully) as they saw that as a growth opportunity for them. Luckily, the audio home recording act (1992) specifically allowed sharing and other fair use scenarios, much to the industry's dismay. In 1992, so no exact copies could be made at that point (well, DAT was around since 1987 but too expensive for most and miniDisc was only released that year) and they just basically dropped it. Only since the internet and the CD-R have they slowly started molding public opinion to frown on sharing as something immoral and illegal but in most countries, it just wasn't. In came the DMCA making it illegal to circumvent copy protection, but not the actual act of copying, as that to this day is still 100% legal. In most countries, you can actual share your own copies with your friends and family as well under fair use policies. But somehow, the RIAA has gotten us all to believe that such a thing is despicable.
Did you know that if Channel designs a frock anyone can take their design, copy it at verbatim and sell it as their own? The only thing they can't do is copy the logo/name but that's because of trademark law, not copyright. So why is the music industry somehow better than the fashion industry?
Or maybe people are more easily persuaded by an artist's point of view? http://www.jonathancoulton.com/2012/01/21/megaupload/
- monkeychow
- Rep: 661
Re: Duff: Quit Whining About SOPA and PIPA
Design law is an entirely different branch of IP...I agree the crossover between various areas in law is odd though...
As for the stealing issue. I think the industry is misguided if they treat EVERY download as a lost sale, as there's songs you might enjoy if they're free but that you would never pay to own. But that said, there are no doubt LOTS of downloads where the person would have purchased the music if buying it was once again the only easy way to have it in acceptable quality.
The thing with coping being this harmless thing is that the scale is a lot smaller with the other historical devices you mention too.
Go back to 1985 and make a mixed tape and give it to your friends. How many people was that again? Or in 1999 buy a CD and make a CDR for people in your family. It's going to be like 10 people or something.
These days 1 person in europe can buy a CD and all of Australia can download a lossless perfect copy.
Bottom line to me is it costs money to make songs in good quality, and if everyone expects to have them free then there's no economic incentive to do it. I know, I know, the tours pay for stuff now right? But I don't hear many people enjoying the current ticket prices. Meanwhile classic acts have no motivation to release new work on that model.
Re: Duff: Quit Whining About SOPA and PIPA
Agree with Monkey 100%. I do download and stream everyday, I can't make a moral argument for it. It's just something I do like alot of people.
Saying copying is different from stealing is quite frankly farcial, your taking something for free that you otherwise would paid for. Last post in this thread about it btw, cause I've argued with people here before who say they'll buy it if they like it. 95% people don't do that.
Music industry has the right, regardless of how they would damaged sales via it's current manufactured tedious state anyway. Only so far the quality argument can go overall, don't think a modern day equiv. of Thriller/Dark Side Of The Moon would have sold 40+ mill copies if it had been released day.
Re: Duff: Quit Whining About SOPA and PIPA
Tommy is turning into a Duff fanboy. Duff could say the sky is red and Tommy would response "woooo, fuck yeah!".
As for you Russ. If you paid Die Van Azoffuhrer $55 bucks for the LP, then you should torrent the shit out of the CD.
If you pay $55 bucks for a record, it should have the record, a CD, a flash drive with the FLAC of the album, and a fucking cassette.
Re: Duff: Quit Whining About SOPA and PIPA
Design law is an entirely different branch of IP...I agree the crossover between various areas in law is odd though...
Are you saying that somehow making music is better/more important than designing clothes? Why is it ok for one branch and not ok for another?
As for the stealing issue. I think the industry is misguided if they treat EVERY download as a lost sale, as there's songs you might enjoy if they're free but that you would never pay to own. But that said, there are no doubt LOTS of downloads where the person would have purchased the music if buying it was once again the only easy way to have it in acceptable quality.
But it isn't, and that's just technological progress for ya. There's no actual reason why these people's jobs need to protected from technological progress, just like in any other business. Again, it's about the fact that we don't want to have special rules for a specific industry because they've swindled us into believing their more entitled.
The thing with coping being this harmless thing is that the scale is a lot smaller with the other historical devices you mention too.
Yes, and throwing one can on the street instead of in the garbage isn't going to destroy nature either. Scale is not a consideration for morality, some acts are wrong and some aren't and if you thought it wasn't wrong before then you probably should agree that it's not wrong today. And if you really do wanna discuss scale, think back to how many albums you actually bought versus the number of cassettes you copied from friends. It might not have been 1-to-many, but it was many-to-many which in the end probably boils down to the same thing.
Bottom line to me is it costs money to make songs in good quality, and if everyone expects to have them free then there's no economic incentive to do it. I know, I know, the tours pay for stuff now right? But I don't hear many people enjoying the current ticket prices. Meanwhile classic acts have no motivation to release new work on that model.
And this is where the reasoning really falls flat, imho. I absolutely HATE this argument. It really doesn't cost a lot to make good quality recordings. If you take away all the excesses some bands allow themselves while recording and go back to the essence of recording music, a complete album is recorded and mixed within 4 weeks. Two weeks of recording, 8 days of mixing and 2 days of mastering. A high-end studio including engineers will cost you roughly 600$ / day, so recording the album will cost you no more than 18000$. But if you really want to make pro sounding albums on the cheap, you need around 8000$ worth of gear and some time on your hands. Next album will cost you time only. It doesn't take a math genius to calculate the insane amounts of money that sticks to peoples hands along the distribution chain. There is absolutely no reason why we the people should keep on supporting/enabling this.
So there's two basic arguments I'm trying to put forward:
1. sharing is not destroying the music industry at the pace people are claiming.
2. The music industry has no inherent right to stop us from sharing their creations. Other industries don't, so why should they?
Re: Duff: Quit Whining About SOPA and PIPA
Tommy Stinson tweeted this article today calling it "Awesome" and "A must read"
jeez this is sad
these old men are out of touch
they used to be young. they've forgotten something. does it happen to everyone?
- monkeychow
- Rep: 661
Re: Duff: Quit Whining About SOPA and PIPA
Are you saying that somehow making music is better/more important than designing clothes? Why is it ok for one branch and not ok for another?
No i'm saying it's not directly comparable. Design law protects some things, copyright others, and patent law others, all types of IP but why each one protects specific things and why there are weaknesses in others do not necessarily relate to this discussion or at least not without getting into a complex analysis of the foundational merits of all IP law...which is sort of beyond the effort I put into chatting here 
I agree it's an odd inconsistency, I just don't think it's relevant. To me it's like saying that seat-belts don't need to be mandated on busses because they arn't on speedboats - it's a related situation but governed by an entirely different branch of law.
But that's just one opinion. I can see how you might look at it differently.
But it isn't, and that's just technological progress for ya. There's no actual reason why these people's jobs need to protected from technological progress, just like in any other business. Again, it's about the fact that we don't want to have special rules for a specific industry because they've swindled us into believing their more entitled.
Well I can at least accept the logic of that argument. I just question if we actually want to live in a society where that's the result. Logically I can see what you mean - the car puts the horseshoe makers out of business - and the internet can put the entertainment content providers out of business. I just figure that unless we want to go back to patronage or some type of other way to pay artisans to be professionals and dedicate their time to making music/movies/books or whatever rather than doing it as a hobby while they work other jobs - then it makes some sense to protect the mechanism for those people to get paid.
Scale is not a consideration for morality, some acts are wrong and some aren't and if you thought it wasn't wrong before then you probably should agree that it's not wrong today.
I think scale and proportion is actually very important for morality. Hit me in the face not so bad, shoot me in the face is far worse. Technically it was wrong for even the historical copies to be made, but the HARM they did was minimal - as it's not very many copies, and the quality of the copies was inferior to purchased product. Meaning that the scale of legit to fake copies was far lower than in the modern world, and the ratio of "upgrades" to legit purchases would be far higher too.
A high-end studio including engineers will cost you roughly 600$ / day, so recording the album will cost you no more than 18000$. t doesn't take a math genius to calculate the insane amounts of money that sticks to peoples hands along the distribution chain.
Ok...so to this I say...
1. I guess it depends on what I mean by pro sounding and what you mean by the money that sticks to people's hands. I have a protools set up and record some good sounding guitar at home - but I can't make shit sound as cool as someone line Randy Staub who did Alice in Chains' Black Gives Way to Blue can....but to get someone like him on my album it's more like $10,000 a track.
2. Even if you are right and it is $18k, if we make all the end product free - how is this cost recouped? I know I don't have $18k to put into my project easily, and if I do find a way to get that money, I want at least a hope of breaking even one day. Bottom line - if something costs money to produce - it's not unreasonable to expect money from people's use of it.
1. sharing is not destroying the music industry at the pace people are claiming.
2. The music industry has no inherent right to stop us from sharing their creations. Other industries don't, so why should they?
1. CD Sales have droped a staggering amount since 2000. If this is not due to sharing - what caused it? The end of the Vinyl-CD replacement cycle is one factor - as is market demographics and stuff, but the figures are overwhelming.
2. Intellectual property was invented to encourage people to spend the time, effort and in some cases dollars it takes to create unique profit and develop new works, ideas, inventions etc....if we want to start cancelling these protections on a wholesale level - then we really need to have a sociological discussion about the pros and cons of such a move. There's areas where IP law now inhibits progress - eg patent abuse in computer companies and drug companies...but then to suggest that it's ok to just ignore copyright without replacing it with a system to otherwise compensate those who make the content seems ill advised to me.
Although we disagree on everything..great post though....I find all this stuff very interesting 
- metallex78
- Rep: 194
Re: Duff: Quit Whining About SOPA and PIPA
I think the one thing that is constantly being brought up here, is that rock stars/bands made a shitload of money back in the day selling CDs, and now that they're not, it's somehow supposed to be ok. And that they should be doing it for free, for the "love" of what they do, simply because the internet made it that way?
Ok, maybe the millions being made before (and now not) shouldn't be an issue. But musicians putting a shitload of time and effort into creating and recording something, which they then try to sell, should be paid for doing so.
It's a big cop out to say, that just because they're doing something they love and that it is a fun profession, that they should do it for free.
I love my job most days, but I sure as hell wouldn't do it for free.
I have some friends that constantly download movies/music and I've gotten into some moral discussions with them, and they don't even think twice about what they're doing, simply because the internet has made it so easy to download illegally.
If they really want to regulate illegal downloads etc, why don't they cut back the unlimited data download plans that everyone seems to be on these days?
