[Article] Threat of Legal Action on Music Copyright

jor el

watty wrote: »

Well that just shows she understands nothing about economics and thinks recording studios are free and all musicians want to do it as hobby.

That kind of attitude and comment is total rubbish.

Well I'll be the first to admit that I don't understand economics, but I do think she had a point. Publicity in any form can help. True that illegal downloading probably costs record companies and artists more in potential revenue, than they actually make from it, but there has to be a middle ground somewhere.

watty

paulm17781 wrote: »

Or that you know little about the modern music industry. Many, many artists are going the independent route these days. You can get studio equipment relatively cheap or use a laptop. Yes, I have friends who have released professional CDs made in their home studios.

It is record labels who are trying to stop this, most musicians, sensible ones anyway are embracing the internet as they know it is the future. Record labels need to protect their revenues, something that soon won't be needed.

And unless they have a day job how do they buy the shopping, pay mortgage and spend money on all the other things the "freetards" spend their money on.

Where is the business model in taking music for free? It will kill decent music if allowed to go to its conclusion. You'll only get decent music as part of adverts.

NullZer0

I think what I dont understand is... why dont people realise that music should be out of love... not for money.

To me THAT is the problem.

NullZer0

watty wrote: »

business model

Thats what I dont get... the whole "business model".
Don't get my wrong I studied business for three years.. but music ... to me and the majority of REAL fans and/or musicians is about talent and enjoyment.

For others it is about image and $$$ ---> which is causing the problem.

paulm17781

watty wrote: »

And unless they have a day job how do they buy the shopping, pay mortgage and spend money on all the other things the "freetards" spend their money on.

Where is the business model in taking music for free? It will kill decent music if allowed to go to its conclusion. You'll only get decent music as part of adverts.

So you're telling me that the only good music is commercial music? I'm not sure I need continue if you're going to make absurd statements like that but I will.

Most of them DJ, play gigs, sell merchandise etc. There doesn't have to be a business model, people do this for enjoyment and try to make a living out of it. I know many people who give out free CDs at gigs and festivals because the publicity is good.

Look up Einsturzende Neubauten, they gave up on labels in 2002 having never received a penny from them yet they've been going since 79.

paddyb125

watty wrote: »

Well that just shows she understands nothing about economics and thinks recording studios are free and all musicians want to do it as hobby.

That kind of attitude and comment is total rubbish.

This all has nothing to do with the artists, its all about the record companies...i'm sure if you asked the artists themselves they wouldn't have a problem with it...I take it you buy all your music then?

AB03

watty wrote: »

And unless they have a day job how do they buy the shopping, pay mortgage and spend money on all the other things the "freetards" spend their money on.

Where is the business model in taking music for free? It will kill decent music if allowed to go to its conclusion. You'll only get decent music as part of adverts.

I'm also wondering why Im wasting my time replying to your nonsense but I suppose I'll just have to, after all, this is the internet. Couldn't let an argument die now could I?

Fact is, the really good music, the music with soul, the music which has had thousands of hours of rehearsal in dingy bedrooms and crappy ill-equipped studios, is done for the love of what the artist does. Not for money.

I deal with hundreds of small artists and labels, from all over europe and the simple reality is : not only do the overwhelming majority of these people do what they love to do for very little monetary return, they also utilise the same services which you're criticising to their full extent, in both an upload and download capacity!

REAL music has finally overcome the reign of commercialised rubbish which has plauged the human race for the past half a decade and the reason for this shift has been one thing : the internet.

Get with the times buddy.

Signed: An Artist

paddyb125

AB03 wrote: »

I'm also wondering why Im wasting my time replying to your nonsense but I suppose I'll just have to, after all, this is the internet. Couldn't let an argument die now could I?

Fact is, the really good music, the music with soul, the music which has had thousands of hours of rehearsal in dingy bedrooms and crappy ill-equipped studios, is done for the love of what the artist does. Not for money.

I deal with hundreds of small artists and labels, from all over europe and the simple reality is : not only do the overwhelming majority of these people do what they love to do for very little monetary return, they also utilise the same services which you're criticising to their full extent, in both an upload and download capacity!

REAL music has finally overcome the reign of commercialised rubbish which the plauged the human race for the past half a decade and the reason for this shift has been one thing : the internet.

Get with the times buddy.

Signed: An Artist

There we go...straight from the horse's mouth!

AB03

watty wrote: »

...and Digital Distribution is poor.

Also have to point this out,

Digital distribution has been the most effective method of releasing music to a worldwide audience ever created!


www.trackitdown.net
www.beatport.com

Seriously man, what are you talking about at all?!?

CaptSolo

AB03 wrote: »

I deal with hundreds of small artists and labels, from all over europe and the simple reality is : not only do the overwhelming majority of these people do what they love to do for very little monetary return, they also utilise the same services which you're criticising to their full extent, in both an upload and download capacity!

REAL music has finally overcome the reign of commercialised rubbish which the plauged the human race for the past half a decade and the reason for this shift has been one thing : the internet.

Get with the times buddy.

Signed: An Artist

Well said. The Internet is changing how people listen to music and hopefully we can find more independent music which is really worth listening to.

One thing I can not understand though. Why free downloads of licensed music are automatically associated with lost sales (and therefore must be responded to by cutting off Internet access)? Is there proof of it (apart from declining income of record companies which might as well be from outdates business models or from people getting fed up with them)?

At least in Canada the opposite might be true: Gov't Commissioned Study Finds P2P Downloaders Buy More Music

watty

AB03 wrote: »

Also have to point this out,

Digital distribution has been the most effective method of releasing music to a worldwide audience ever created!


www.trackitdown.net
www.beatport.com

Seriously man, what are you talking about at all?!?

I can't easily buy the music I want in uncompressed highest quality
I can't until recently buy it without DRM
It's MORE expensive than buying a CD in many cases.

Digital purchases should be free of DRM, uncompressed and about 1/4 to 1/10th the cost of Retail CDs. No distribution cost, no manufacturing cost.

I mean the Offical digital distribution is poor. I'm not interested in and have never done copyright infringing downloads.

I've downloaded free music that the Artist / Band has chosen to distribute for free. That's not what TPB is about. Usually it's highly compressed and in cases where I have been interested I've bought the album.

In surveys of REAL people, most people offered Digital Download want the "hard copy" too. Some US cable / Fibre companies when you buy the download put the DVD into the post. At the right price that's a good service for those not wanting to backup or leery of backups.
I recovered a HDD where PCB chips had exploded. The guy had maybe over €800 of iTunes on it. Most people ar'n't good at backups.

paddyb125

watty wrote: »

In surveys of REAL people

Who are these 'Real' people??

paulm17781

watty wrote: »

I can't easily buy the music I want in uncompressed highest quality
I can't until recently buy it without DRM
It's MORE expensive than buying a CD in many cases.

Digital purchases should be free of DRM, uncompressed and about 1/4 to 1/10th the cost of Retail CDs. No distribution cost, no manufacturing cost.

I mean the Offical digital distribution is poor. I'm not interested in and have never done copyright infringing downloads.

I've downloaded free music that the Artist / Band has chosen to distribute for free. That's not what TPB is about. Usually it's highly compressed and in cases where I have been interested I've bought the album.

In surveys of REAL people, most people offered Digital Download want the "hard copy" too. Some US cable / Fibre companies when you buy the download put the DVD into the post. At the right price that's a good service for those not wanting to backup or leery of backups.
I recovered a HDD where PCB chips had exploded. The guy had maybe over €800 of iTunes on it. Most people ar'n't good at backups.

Fascinating. :rolleyes:

What does this have to do with musicians wanting their music out there?

What does any of that have to do with the internet has helped promote independent music?

What does it have to do with you retracting your "rubbish" statement earlier?

AB03

If you bothered having a look around the 2 sites (of which there are literally thousands btw), you'd realise that beatport for example, offers a simple option to download a fully uncompressed WAV for an extra few cent, generally no more than €2 per track in total, all inclusive, sometimes less.

Now personally, I CANNOT tell the difference between a properly recorded 320kbps MP3 and an uncompressed WAV, and I have about 8-10 years experience creating and mastering audio.
Both I and almost every other DJ in the world now use 320kbps MP3s in clubs with sound systems worth 100s of thousands of euro.

So your argument, again, is rubbish really.

the_syco

Mostly, getting signed means one of two things:
1) Getting more gigs
2) Gettings your merch sold in more shops

A mate is in a band. He has done gigs in Dublin, Belfast, Galway, and will be doing there, and also in Waterford, France, etc, but if he got signed up by, say, Nuclear Blast, his band may be given the chance to go to more countries to do the gigs, and in bigger venues.

He gets a few thousand CD's made. He sells them at the gigs. He then gets a place he knows in Dublin to sell some of his CD's. If signed, the label would get his CD's sold in the more "mainstream" shops, such as Zavvi, etc.

Record companies need money in their pockets to promote bands before they make money for them.

CiaranC

watty wrote: »

But like ANY network you get disconnected for doing wrong.

Civil offences often have more costly penalties if you are sued than a criminal prosecution.


Strangely almost anyone that generates useful information and intellectual property thinks it is immoral and very like theft to use it with out they get compensated in some manner.

In every culture for the whole of recorded history people have belived this. Perhaps you have no logic for your belief except that others produce information / intellectual property and you don't so it suits you to try and justify just taking it.

It's wrong and the rights holders are morally and legally entitled to sue you for damages.

Do you think art will disappear as soon as there is no profit in it?

Yawn. Ive been an evil stealing pirate for 22 years, and Ill continue to be one. I dont care who thinks its morally wrong. I dont care who goes out of business. There is nothing anyone can do about me, and hundreds of millions like me.

AB03

the_syco wrote: »

Record companies need money in their pockets to promote bands before they make money for them.

I dont doubt that at all, but its fair to say that most of the independant labels have had to branch out into areas other than simply production assistance, distribution and marketing over the past 5 years.

A huge amount have become booking agents and promoters for their artists and helped push both sales of tracks + gigs through the same avenues, to much success from what Ive heard.

watty

AB03 wrote: »

If you bothered having a look around the 2 sites (of which there are literally thousands btw), you'd realise that beatport for example, offers a simple option to download a fully uncompressed WAV for an extra few cent, generally no more than €2 per track in total, all inclusive, sometimes less.

Now personally, I CANNOT tell the difference between a properly recorded 320kbps MP3 and an uncompressed WAV, and I have about 8-10 years experience creating and mastering audio.
Both I and almost every other DJ in the world now use 320kbps MP3s in clubs with sound systems worth 100s of thousands of euro.

So your argument, again, is rubbish really.

€2 per track for a download. Crazy money. I'd expect an Album for that by Download and to pay 20c per track.

I use 256kbp on my portable player. Pocket headphones & ambient noise or car playback.

I've done PA and recording since before I trained and worked in the BBC 30 years ago. There is some good DJ and Club systems. But a lot of the speakers are junk.

There are absolutely not 1000s of sites with decent catalogues. That is fantasy. I can buy music easier and cheaper on CD unless I want to infringe copyright.

AB03

I couldnt be bothered continuing this, you're obviously set in your ways.

watty

Heh

This is getting just like Usenet.

If the " it costs nothing to copy, so it should be free" brigade succeed, the real musicians can publish printed music and we can learn instruments and play it at home, just like up to the 19th century was like.

Those with no playing talent can flirt or turn the pages. It will be fun, just like a Jane Austin Novel.

Wait... People will scan it and publish it on web pages, the songsmith will starve.

lostexpectation

know it all watty doens't know who gemma hayes is.

AB03

watty wrote: »

Heh

This is getting just like Usenet.

If the " it costs nothing to copy, so it should be free" brigade succeed, the real musicians can publish printed music and we can learn instruments and play it at home, just like up to the 19th century was like.

Those with no playing talent can flirt or turn the pages. It will be fun, just like a Jane Austin Novel.

Wait... People will scan it and publish it on web pages, the songsmith will starve.

Watch this interview we did with Richie Hawtin, who (iirc) has a financial interest in beatport.com

Particular reference to the last few questions, which relate directly to this subject, you can skip the rest :

http://www.yournight.ie/play.php?vid=909

watty

How do you know?
I lived not far from where she went to school. BTW ANYONE can sing Bob Dylan songs better than Bob Dylan, so that's no proof of talent.

She's irrelevent to the issue of copyright infringement. The Record Labels and Industry didn't invent copyright. It's for the protection of the artists. It's not up to one artist to throw out the idea of IP and copyright. She can give away her own work. She has no right whatsover to suggest that you should take my work or Bob Dylan's work without paying for it. Only the rights holder has that right.

barnicles

People will only go to rapidshare if this is implimented.

watty

June 2008


Feargal Sharkey on... three strikes

Even within the past seven days there's been any number of conversations going on - and they're very sticky - with ISPs revolving around the ideal of how do we do this together. We need something which gives you some sort of commercial incentive as an ISP, but which also ensures we as the music industry have a financial model that can still keep signing artists and making records.

It's not a big mindshift right now. I have genuinely seen a huge mental shift in the past six months - that conversation wouldn't have taken place a year ago.

It is incredibly reassuring that if the government will stand up and say, if you can't come up with a commercial solution to something that's a commercial problem, then we will legislate. Personally I have concerns about that, based on my five years as the radio regulator of commercial radio. I'm acutely sensitive to the idea that kind of regulatory intervention does not necessarily provide you with a 100 per cent solution.

El Reg: What concerns?

Nobody in the music industry has any idea what it means when the Government says they're going to regulate.

El Reg: Is it the threat of legislation that's changed that - that's opened up negotiations with ISPs?

It's not the threat of legislation, it's the commercial environment. The set of problems ISPs are facing is totally different. You can only sell so many broadband connections to people in the United Kingdom, then you can't sell anymore. You can only sell so many mobile phones, then everyone's got one.

So they're looking at their business and thinking, "how can we grow this?" That drives you down the route of content and what extra services can you get out of them? What can you offer them that gets an extra fiver out of them?

barnicles

watty wrote: »

How do you know?
I lived not far from where she went to school. BTW ANYONE can sing Bob Dylan songs better than Bob Dylan, so that's no proof of talent.

She's irrelevent to the issue of copyright infringement. The Record Labels and Industry didn't invent copyright. It's for the protection of the artists. It's not up to one artist to throw out the idea of IP and copyright. She can give away her own work. She has no right whatsover to suggest that you should take my work or Bob Dylan's work without paying for it. Only the rights holder has that right.

There are millions of torrents that contain music in the world. Anti-p2p's dont have the resources to monitor every torrent. Most torrents monitored will be new one's.

99.999% of these won't be Bob Dylan.

watty

barnicles wrote: »

People will only go to rapidshare if this is implimented.

Yes.

then the Rights Holders will buy or hack rapidshare.

This is a stupid war that no-one can win and EVERYONE can lose.

Labels and Rights Holders need prices that are about 1/4 for the physical media and 1/10th for downloads (no DRM).

The vocal minority who support TPB and similar need to realise that actually the majority of people don't approve and don't do copyright infringement. People downloading 100Gbyte to 1Terabyte a month are parasites. Even their download traffic is subsidised by regular net users. Their free films and free music and free software is subsidized by the rest of us that pay.

CaptSolo

watty wrote:

But like ANY network you get disconnected for doing wrong.

What is "doing wrong" is a legal question.

There are laws and due process for suing people if they are doing wrong according to laws. It should not be a question of agreements between private companies and ISPs to cut people off.

If private companies are policing and interpreting what "doing wrong" means and convicting people of wrongdoing w/o proper process, something is wrong.

I believe Internet access is becoming a utility same as electricity and water is. Sure, suppliers of those utilities could also define TOSs and cut people off for "doing wrong". But they are gonna face big problems if they do so.

Infini

CaptSolo wrote: »

If private companies are policing and interpreting what "doing wrong" means and convicting people of wrongdoing w/o proper process, something is wrong.

This is where the main problem would be with this sort of thing. I personally dont agree with the whole 3 strikes thing its just BS IMO. Simple fact is IP's can be spoofed, theres the TOR network, hell an IP is just a random assigned number on the internet it doesnt prove ANYTHING beyond who might have had it at one point and even then its iffy.

These labels profits have been declining for years and P2P was just an excuse for some of them, hell in some cases its IMPROVED the audiences of some groups who wouldnt have gotten off the ground because the labels thought they werent any good.

The internet is far too big for em to track everything and history has shown that their attempts at this has only cause the issue to evolve. When napster was shut down, along came kazaa and then when that went down along came bitorrent. Hell the whole recent issue of DRM goin out the window was BECAUSE in part due to P2P hell whats the point in buying something if ya cant use it on yer ipod or mp3 player.

As for TPB i hope they actually win their case as i personally dont like the way the labels have done things for the last number of years, hell their credibility was shot to hell when they went and sued 12 year olds and DEAD PEOPLE.

The most i could ever agree on the whole P2P vs IP would be a general €10 levy or something similar to what they have in Canada at least thats one way of sorting the issue, the music only perks the interest its selling merchandise and concert tickets where they could make the money in the long term from what i can see. In the end tho i hope the other ISP's dont give the labels the time of day on this or resist them outright, I have no respect for these companies that will violate ppls privacy it only endangers ppls civil liberties in the long term if its allowed to continue.

/rantoff

watty

Infini wrote: »

The most i could ever agree on the whole P2P vs IP would be a general €10 levy

Have everyone fund the parasites. Great. Why should honest people pay for people who have no respect for others rights?