trache

I guess fair use and taxes levied on blank media aren't enough for some people:

File-sharing law to tabeled next week

I for one am sick of the recording industry saying that we are infringing on any copyrights. They make enough money as it is and in some cases (I will cite Radiohead's Kid A album debut as one), actually increase the chances of a work of art to being sold in the first place.

Why can't the media industry subsidize the creation of faster Internet pipes so that people can actually download the things they want to watch and listen to, even for a small price?

Are there really any solutions to this problem? How can we as an audience be able to purchase the things we want and not be controlled to death?

An online version of the Guide to Copyrights, according to Canadian law (http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/sc_mrksv/c...otect-e.html#6):

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"You looked at me as if I was eating runny eggs in slow motion." - Gord Downie of The Tragically Hip

portereight

The record industry is a dinosaur and they know it. The only reason large record companies exist is to finance promote and distribute. With the bedroom hard disk recording revolution they lost a sizable piece of the puzzle. The methods they employee to keep artists in debt to them with the way advances are payed back is criminal, and depends to a degree on a system where large advances must be used to finance production of cd's, video's.
If the world moves to downloading (and it seems that it wants to) they will lose most of the production and distribution of cd's. With internet radio they could lose control of the promotion pipeline. They fear a radio universe where you might hear more than the 40 artists they are interested in at the time. They are running scared.
The main difference between dinosaurs and the record industry is that they have lawyers and money. They are buying laws to buy time.

OFKU0

I'm a working musician and have worked on various recordings where royalty payments were contractual between me and the source of ownership, be it the musician's, record labels or publishing companies. Independant or freelance musician's like me, who are lucky enough to get points from recordings, see less and less money.

I'm not going to get into a pissing match with anyone who defends free? music or whatever source of downloadable property they like. The rhetoric regarding record companies is funny (evil, money hungry) just because most people who rely on such nonsense haven't got the fucking slightest clue how record companies work. Want to piss up a tree? Try publishing companies. That's a good place to start.

Personally I think why should the recording industry and it's artists suffer. Maybe everything should be free. Let's start with gaming and steal all that software. That's pretty popular. How many people can we make loss their jobs in that industry.

Or how about automobiles. Maybe Saturn can replicate the Ford Mustand and sell the car for 50% less. I'm sure Ford wouldn't mind. Oh,.. your brother, uncle, father works at Ford and is getting laid off because of Saturn. Too fucking bad. Who the fuck cares.

Like comic books? Well then lets take the whole book and reproduce it and give it away. Copyrights don't mean anything. And for the people who work there. Fuck em. I want it for free and if someone can get it to me for free, fuck everybody else. I'm sure Hugh Hefner and Playboy wouldn't mind either.

Tongue in cheek I suppose. Just remember, some of you might be in a position one day where your livelihood is shrinking just because someone feels that what you produce should be free. It all comes around sooner or later.

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" In Canada, you can tell the most blatant lie in a calm voice, and people will believe you over someone who's a little passionate about the truth." David Warren, Western Standard.

portereight

I've never said music should be free. I think the record companies either have to adapt to new distribution models or die. The industry seems to believe that the solution to their problems is banning the technology rather than embracing the technology.
I read somewhere this week that apple's itunes is actually providing more legal downloads than any of the p2p apps. I can't verify that, but if true it would stand to reason that buying music without buying the cd has come of age. Why are the record companies still hell bent on selling and shipping the plastic disc? They keep quoting cd unit sales as a metric of what illegal downloading is doing to them.
What other industry when given an opportunity to place a store in everyones home, a store which doesn't require inventory, can't lose a sale to a back order, one where the item can be sold for the same price as the physical object without ever having to produce ship or warehouse anything, what other industry would run the other way screaming.?

trache

OFKU0:

I have no problem with the position you're in. You're a musician and probably a damn good one at that (people won't underwrite you if all you can do is play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star!) if you have a career that stems from your hard work.

What the lobbyists at the publishing houses seem to have forgotten is that in Canada, there have been laws inacted that subsidize the publishing houses for "the losses they suffer" in help to support their shrinking revenue stream, and yours.

I don't care if they want to charge a bit more for their products, but once I buy it, I should be able to do whatever the hell I want with it. And if I should put it up on a filesharing network does not mean I've given you the gun or pulled the trigger - that's your decision.

I have only third hand knowledge of how industries like yours work. Do you have any websites, research papers or facts and figures to help us see your side of the coin?

To date, I haven't seen hard verifiable proof that activities such as downloading media will ultimately kill the publishing industry as a whole, i.e., see publishing as an industry and career vanish in a few years time. In fact more often that not, downloading media has made media more accessible and therefore, more profitable to the employees of publishing houses (including you).

__________________
"You looked at me as if I was eating runny eggs in slow motion." - Gord Downie of The Tragically Hip

OFKU0

[QUOTE=trache]

Well if all comes full circle, having 20 years in the biz, you just may see me on a Live Aid* stage somewhere in North America, providing I can wear my OFKU0 t-shirt. That should suffice.

Not necessarily. But you touched on my earlier point. Publishing companies. Go and see how they have regained 100% profit by doing very little but administering cost. Got a bone to pick. Again, start there.

And as you say,...in fact more often than not,... really. Back that up.
[QUOTE]

__________________
" In Canada, you can tell the most blatant lie in a calm voice, and people will believe you over someone who's a little passionate about the truth." David Warren, Western Standard.

trache

Having the chance to perform at Live Aid is certainly a great accomplishment, however, I don't see how that manages to let the rest of us here see just how much filesharing may or may not hurt you as a musician. I apologize: Sorry, what I meant by my original question is: Do you have any information that could back up your opinion that filesharing is hurting every artist's bottom line?

Do some get hurt more than others? I often hear about how money often goes to feed egos and for example, M.C. Hammer went broke after his 15 minutes back in the 90s. I guess Sean Combs may or may not be in the same boat? You don't often hear amount of money or contractual obligations being thrown around in newspapers, radio, or on TV. The only thing we tend to see are shows like "Cribs" on MTV. IMO, I tend to think that most new artists these days get contracts based on selling points like face, ass, smile, and not always because of their talent.

Has someone ever said to you, that because they see the work you do (I'm assuming you're a session musician?) is downloadable on the Internet, do you get paid less money? I would certainly like to learn from someone who has 20 years of experience in the industry - I'm sure all of us here on TFP would.

I'm not sure if you're asking if I have a bone to pick with you, or you're telling me that you do. I may be misunderstanding you! Regardless, I am trying to find as much information about the recording industry - this thread has sparked a little research interest!

Sorry, I should have backed it up in the first place!

I cannot start to quote the many articles on the phenomenon that is the Internet, filesharing, Napster etc, but I will share my two favourite examples:

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/commen..._i_d_e_wi.html :

http://www.wowessays.com/dbase/af4/lvw168.shtml :
Admittedly these are only two of the top hits on Google, and they are old articles (but obviously still being referenced by the search engine)

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"You looked at me as if I was eating runny eggs in slow motion." - Gord Downie of The Tragically Hip

JJRousseau

I can't defend copyright infringement 'cause I think it's wrong any way you argue it. But the industry's response (legislation to access ISP customers, legislation to profit from blank media sales, etc) is a big piss off. Evolve or die and frankly I hope most of them go the way of the Dodo bird and take most of their crappy mainstream acts with them. Every song or album I've bought in the last two years has been as a result of P2Ps, streaming audio stations, etc. These technologies have introduced me to great bands that I never would have otherwise heard of.

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Take from the philosopher the pleasure of being heard and his desire for knowledge ceases.

samiam

As an author, I am concerned about copyright protection. However, I think that new models of distribution must be investigated before the whole model disintegrates. I don't download music because I really have no interest, but on the other hand I don't buy a lot of CD'd and do listen to the radio including Internet radio. There must be a way to protect the livelihood of creators and allow for the efficient distribution of material.

canuckguy

I am sorry, but lets face it, the cost to see a movie, or buy a cd is just too expensive for what it is. The artists (in general) are over paid. Most people enjoy making music for the love of music, not because it will hopefully some day allow them to own 12 houses. Madonna should be paid 2 million to make a cd, not 30 million. If she wants to earn more, do it the honest way, tour your butt off like most small bands do. The reason they make so much? well that is easy, so the piece of the pie that the lawyers, record company people make is bigger. Do you think they want a chunk of 1 million or 50 million? It has got to the point that some skills are just over paid for. Pro sports, music, actors are all demanding more and more money (see record ex, lawyers) making the cost to see the movie, go to a baseball game or buy the cd that much more expensive. Sure your getting good products, but if the people who are getting paid this insane amount of money actually got paid what they deserve, maybe a cd would cost 4-6 bucks and not 14-20. Most artists/actors/atheletes start out for the love of it, what comes after is by product of the all the hangers on that keep making the price go up and up.
that is just my opinion, i remember reading a story from some sony music guy who said they could charge 5 bucks a cd right now and still make a profit......rip off. did the music biz not have to pay off millions to consumers before for over charging? i remember you could sign up on this website and they would mail u a cheque for like 10 bucks or something.
just my opinon.

JJRousseau

The fact that a record company can pay Madonna $30 million and still make a profit off her work means that she IS worth that much. If you think her CDs are overpriced (I agree) then you don't buy them. But none of this is a valid moral argument for stealing her music. If it was, there would be a $800,000 McLaren SLR sitting in my driveway!

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Take from the philosopher the pleasure of being heard and his desire for knowledge ceases.

Martian

To further what JJRousseau said, not only is it fair but these profits are going to be there no matter how much the artist is paid. If Madonna only got $2 million for a record that made hundreds of millions there are those who would be screaming about how the recording industry is making gobs of money off the backs of talented artists.

But back to the main point. I'm not going to argue copyright law or whether it's wrong to download music, because that sort of discussion is academic. iTunes does really well because there are a lot of people who'd rather pay a small fee for music than deal with all the crap that the free p2p programs include (such as spyware, viruses and mislabelled content). This is the new way of distributing music and you can legislate it all you want, but it's not going to go away. The record labels as they exist now have the option of adapting to the new way of doing things or simply going extinct.

YKK

I bought an album for $30 last year which was made for ~$800 in the eighties. This was certainly a mistake on my part. The big-time recording industry is going to eat it's own tail if it doesn't begin to understand the state it resides in. Further, though I make no claims to justify my actions, I have lots of pirated music. I became disgusted with myself for feeding corperate industry and now steal the music I listen to.

DC++ is not a bad file share program, minimalistic and not based on any central server. This fact is completely independant of music, video and software piracy. DC++ is a very legal program which is used to distribute legal files on an international scale.

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So don't fsck it up for the rest.
-- Sick of It All; Yours Truly