Irish music-swappers admit liability

paulm17781

ButtermilkJack wrote:

Exactly, just making a point really.

Spot on!! That's the whole arguement here. I don't mean to sound jealous or anything here, but what gives an artist the "right" to earn €10m per album. Ok, he/she/they have a talent, but I have a talent for what I do but I don't ask my employer for €10m per year. If they are good, they will earn enough to live a modest lifestyle. If they are crap they will have to take an office job and the music lovers will be forever greatful. You've got to work hard for your money, not become a millionaire overnight because you're a one-hit-wonder.

That's what the Lotto is for

If you sell enough of anything you should become wealthy. If you sell 50m records you deserve money. The likes of the pop idol "artists" don't make anywhere near that amount of money. Most of the 1 hit wonders probably earn about 50,000 max.

Blaster99

Chalk wrote:

i dont get it,
how are you poking fun at me?

i havent come upo with any reasons justifying anything,
i merely commented that you could be considered a law breaker in terms of libel,
nothing else,

you then claimed ignorance of the legal situation.
which pretty much sums up the relevance of you posting on the subject,
does it not?

From my perspective the fun bit is in not really caring, but you seem to get a bit worked up and defensive about it, talking about libel and stuff. Which is perhaps ever so slightly over the top would you agree?

Chalk

to quote someone from the other day,
"sarcasm doesnt work on the internet anymore"

ah well,
ill get over the loss.
was just pointing out the ironing in your post

PiE

Blaster99 wrote:

In my book copyright infringement equals theft, particularly this form of copyright infringement.

Ever loaned a book to a friend? Recorded a tv show? Made a mix-tape for a friend?

Burn in hell, thief.

grumpytrousers

ButtermilkJack wrote:

Exactly, just making a point really.

Spot on!! That's the whole arguement here. I don't mean to sound jealous or anything here, but what gives an artist the "right" to earn €10m per album. Ok, he/she/they have a talent, but I have a talent for what I do but I don't ask my employer for €10m per year. If they are good, they will earn enough to live a modest lifestyle. If they are crap they will have to take an office job and the music lovers will be forever greatful. You've got to work hard for your money, not become a millionaire overnight because you're a one-hit-wonder.

That's what the Lotto is for

Of course the artist has a right to make money; if the punters want something and are willing to pay a price, then the artist should benefit.

Now - whether some cnut with a coke habit, a ponytail and a loud hawaiian shirt deserves to make money in his job as a record company exec is another story entirely...and I guess I'd perhaps have the same reservations about Mr HMV

For my money Paul McCartney, Johnny Cash, the bloke that wrote 'Baby One More Time'...Killswitch Engage...I don't care; if they're producing something and people like it, they ARE entitled to
a) get paid
b) get rich

your argument that you don't demand extortionate money from your boss is fundamentally flawed in that in comparative terms, you have not achieved anything in your job which is the equivalent of writing one decent song. Much less a decent song that cleans up on royalties/sales worldwide...

ButtermilkJack

paulm17781 wrote:

If you sell enough of anything you should become wealthy. If you sell 50m records you deserve money....

I couldn't agree more, but my point is 'How much money?' What's wrong with selling 50m records at €1 each, or 10m records at €1 each. That's a healthy profit (ok ok, minus costs/manufacturing etc...). I think the word we're all looking for is 'Greed'. Pure and simple!

EDIT:

grumpytrousers wrote:

Of course the artist has a right to make money; if the punters want something and are willing to pay a price, then the artist should benefit.

Now - whether some cnut with a coke habit, a ponytail and a loud hawaiian shirt deserves to make money as a record company exec is another story entirely...and I guess I'd perhaps have the same reservations about Mr HMV

For my money Paul McCartney, Johnny Cash, the bloke that wrote 'Baby One More Time'...Killswitch Engage...I don't care; if they're producing something and people like it, they ARE entitled to
a) get paid
b) get rich

your argument that you don't demand extortionate money from your boss is fundamentally flawed in that in comparative terms, you have not achieved anything in your job which is the equivalent of writing one decent song. Much less a decent song that cleans up on royalties/sales worldwide...

Yes, I can see your point. I'm not comparing my situation to a recording artist at all.

I should be venting my anger towards the producers/record companies. I agree if you produce something unique that there is a demand for, you deserve money. Somewhere along the line though, everybody thinks they deserve their share and the price goes up!

Dinner

Gegerty wrote:

Does anybody know which ISP's are handing out personal details to IRMA??? Are UTV amongst those by any chance??? I know there's a lot of people on the boards stuck in contract with those shower of sh*tes and if they're handing out personal information then thats a nice excuse to get out of the contract

AFAIK UTV have UK IP addresses and wouldnt be of any interest to the IRMA. I suppose when the UK equivalent continues their cases UTV customers might be included in that. Hopefully, they'll just forget about UTV customers because we're Irish. Never know.

Gegerty

grumpytrousers wrote:

Of course the artist has a right to make money; if the punters want something and are willing to pay a price, then the artist should benefit.

Now - whether some cnut with a coke habit, a ponytail and a loud hawaiian shirt deserves to make money in his job as a record company exec is another story entirely...and I guess I'd perhaps have the same reservations about Mr HMV

For my money Paul McCartney, Johnny Cash, the bloke that wrote 'Baby One More Time'...Killswitch Engage...I don't care; if they're producing something and people like it, they ARE entitled to
a) get paid
b) get rich

your argument that you don't demand extortionate money from your boss is fundamentally flawed in that in comparative terms, you have not achieved anything in your job which is the equivalent of writing one decent song. Much less a decent song that cleans up on royalties/sales worldwide...

The fact is that so long as a CD costs more than €5 people are going to copy CD's, copy songs off the radio and download music. Sue people all you want it's not going to stop the machine.

Talk to people in the US on other forums such as newtorrents.info and you'll see that letters threatening legal action are common and are just ignored by the majority of people. Obviously the heavy offenders are clamped down on and it usually involves busting their door down and actually confiscation the PC. What does that tell you about the legality of their "evidence". Also I made a point earlier, how IRMA can consider any Irish uploader a *serious* uploader is a joke! We just don't have the bandwidth! This is a publicity thing and they're trying to take attention away from the fact that the pop idol approach of signing artists is killing off any chance of decent talented artists making a breakthrough. TBH file sharing is the music industry's only hope and they're just too damn greedy to see it.

paulm17781

ButtermilkJack wrote:

I couldn't agree more, but my point is 'How much money?' What's wrong with selling 50m records at €1 each, or 10m records at €1 each. That's a healthy profit (ok ok, minus costs/manufacturing etc...). I think the word we're all looking for is 'Greed'. Pure and simple!

Manufacturing (cd pressing, inlay card, cd cover), distribution, recording time, shop staff wages, shop, shop profit. All made from a euro, I see you have thought this out well! :rolleyes:

As was said above however, record companies could certainly take a pay cut. I think (not certain though) an artist get approximately 3 dollars of every album sold. The only thing that is unfair about that is that the artist (song writer) should really be getting most of the profit. Hence why I always try to buy cds direct from smaller bands.

Goldstein

PiE wrote:

Ever loaned a book to a friend? Recorded a tv show? Made a mix-tape for a friend?

Burn in hell, thief.

Might I add:
photocopied a page from a book? (or been given one - school/college/work) lent a CD? lent a DVD? recorded something off the radio? used an iPod/iRiver/Zen/any other MP3 player? burned a CD to your computer?...

Dam thieves eh? They're a scurge on this Earth alright.


(Of course they're not quite as bad as the hypocrites)

chorus techy

Gegerty wrote:

Does anybody know which ISP's are handing out personal details to IRMA??? Are UTV amongst those by any chance??? I know there's a lot of people on the boards stuck in contract with those shower of sh*tes and if they're handing out personal information then thats a nice excuse to get out of the contract

The 17 involved in the recent legal action were Eircom and BT customers however, it won't be too long until all ISPs are forced to hand over customer details. I mean, do you reall expect ISPs to face legal action just to protect the rights of someone who might pay them €30 a month for an internet connection? I doubt it.

Gegerty

chorus techy wrote:

The 17 involved in the recent legal action were Eircom and BT customers however, it won't be too long until all ISPs are forced to hand over customer details. I mean, do you reall expect ISPs to face legal action just to protect the rights of someone who might pay them €30 a month for an internet connection? I doubt it.

No I don't expect the Irish ISP's to stick up for their customers that's for sure! It's good to know I can break my 6 month BT contract when I switch over to them though (although I'm hoping they will at least be a half decent service :-)). Handing out personal information is most definitely cause for termination of contract.

ButtermilkJack

paulm17781 wrote:

Manufacturing (cd pressing, inlay card, cd cover), distribution, recording time, shop staff wages, shop, shop profit. All made from a euro, I see you have thought this out well! :rolleyes: ...

Ok, wow, where do I start? I don't really have time to sit down with my pencil and calculator , I'm just trying to make a point. I agree, €1 is ridiculously low, but like I said, this thread is moving so fast we are all just making points here.

I think if we all showed the same 'passion' shown here towards each other, the record companies might just take notice

chorus techy

Gegerty wrote:

Handing out personal information is most definitely cause for termination of contract.

Well, yes it is because you'd be breaking the contract
Pretty much all ISPs now have a clause in their contract about how the service is not to be used to transmit any data which is defamatory or if it infringes on the copyright of others, in which case it would be as you would be transmitting copyrighted music and data files.

Gegerty

chorus techy wrote:

Well, yes it is because you'd be breaking the contract
Pretty much all ISPs now have a clause in their contract about how the service is not to be used to transmit any data which is defamatory or if it infringes on the copyright of others, in which case it would be as you would be transmitting copyrighted music and data files.

If I was caught yeah. I'm sure BT would have no problem ending the contract mutually! I meant if they turn out to be as sh*ite as UTV then I can break the contract on the grounds that it has become apparent to me that they have a policy of handing out personal information without permission.

paulm17781

ButtermilkJack wrote:

Ok, wow, where do I start? I don't really have time to sit down with my pencil and calculator

Nor did I!

I think we can all agree CDs are too expensive. The sad thing is it is the record companies (mainly) who are making money off of them and they are probably the involved people who least deserve it. Sad thing is downloading music won't show them.

As someone said above, file sharing isn't going to go away until music becomes much cheaper. Sad thing is I doubt this will happen any time soon.

grumpytrousers

PiE wrote:

Ever loaned a book to a friend? Recorded a tv show? Made a mix-tape for a friend?

Burn in hell, thief.

We've all done the book/album/DVD borrowing but the difference is that engaging in that behaviour historically hasn't caused a noticable fall in sales of the original products.

The contention (and I aint' saying it's true or not) is that wholesale file transferring means that overall MORE people will spend LESS on SOMETHING...

And while we all like to rail against 'The Man', ultimately if you don't pay for an album the writer/performer/producer (the talented ones!) lose out...unfortunately the untalented coke-snorting muppets I alluded to above win if you DO pay, but them's is the breaks...

Cuauhtemoc

grumpytrousers wrote:

We've all done the book/album/DVD borrowing but the difference is that engaging in that behaviour historically hasn't caused a noticable fall in sales of the original products.

Just out of interest, the fall in sales that has been reported in Ireland, is this over the counter sales only?
Or is the fall maybe explainable by cheaper internet sales/legal downloads/cd wow etc which they conveniently leave out of Irish sales figures?

chorus techy

Cuauhtemoc wrote:

Just out of interest, the fall in sales that has been reported in Ireland, is this over the counter sales only?
Or is the fall maybe explainable by cheaper internet sales/legal downloads/cd wow etc which they conveniently leave out of Irish sales figures?

An excellent point! I, probably like many others, have given up paying rip off over-the-counter prices and have resorted to paying much less for the exact same high quality over-the-counter sale from CD buying websites and now I buy ALL my cds over the net. If just 100 people moved to CD websites, that could be a prety hefty "drop" in sales. And of course, sales of CDs from foreign countries plus sales of CDs from websites are not included in the sale figures of the overall CD sales in Ireland.

is_that_so

My take on it is that it was inevitable, difficult to condone but a very widespread activity. The fact that cdwow, play and many others do good business suggests that we don't get much value for money.

Red Alert

Well the nice folks in IRMA have had their say on CDWow as well haven't they.

Fact of the matter is that we've elected the government (and the hapless opposition) and we could make the IRMA thing a big issue. Quite frankly people's employers or parents shouldn't have to police the net just to keep IRMA happy.

Has Dick Doyle ever borrowed a book, game or dare we say it a CD?

Basq

OK.. i'm just throwing this out there. May be talking outta of my ass and it has probably been addressed before but bear with me:

Was it not stated somewhere before (possibly only in US) that it was LEGAL to download an MP3 and store it on your hard-drive for 24 hours? After that time period, it must be deleted!

I know only uploaders are being prosecuted right now but when it comes to prosecuting downloaders..

.. what's stopping Dick Doyle ringing up a downloader saying they got their download history from Eircom and they're records of numerous MP3's downloaded in the past. And giving them hell with legal mumbo-jumbo. And then the accused retorts by saying "i only held onto those songs for 24 hours.. and then deleted them!"

andrew163

Wasn't that just an urban legend? (the 24 hours thing)

leche solara

An article in PC Live (July) says "there is one loophole where P2P file sharing is permitted. If you have a CD that you purchased but but it no longer plays properly because of scratches or cracks, you can download the CD without fear of prosecution"

Surely this is a very big loophole and if its true it leaves a lot of scope.

Hope PC Live don't go after me for "sharing" that quote.

andrew163

Perhaps your copy of the magazine was scratched..

TheMonster

wouldn't they have to download from you to verify the file. Whos to say the name mean anything

penexpers

Gegerty wrote:

You'd be an idiot to settle out of court anyway. Any evidence they have is basically a text file of logs, which anybody can just put together. I doubt very much it'll stand up with outdated Irish laws.

Would you risk it though? Solicitors are pretty expensive things.

penexpers

basquille wrote:

OK.. i'm just throwing this out there. May be talking outta of my ass and it has probably been addressed before but bear with me:

Was it not stated somewhere before (possibly only in US) that it was LEGAL to download an MP3 and store it on your hard-drive for 24 hours? After that time period, it must be deleted!

I know only uploaders are being prosecuted right now but when it comes to prosecuting downloaders..

.. what's stopping Dick Doyle ringing up a downloader saying they got their download history from Eircom and they're records of numerous MP3's downloaded in the past. And giving them hell with legal mumbo-jumbo. And then the accused retorts by saying "i only held onto those songs for 24 hours.. and then deleted them!"

Total urban legend.

paulm17781

I only buy CDs in Ireland if they are E15 or less or I really, really want it. I buy several (10) cds a month. I think that shows cheaper prices online are probably alot to do with "falling music sales".

pugleon

As with all things dirty, what happens in the states STAYS in the states....

Just kiddin

The napster case set the precedent but not over here. Data protection acts don’t cover you for copyright infringement. If you are in fact breaking the law they do have the right to track you do, and get your information from a company.

Fact is there will be secure file sharing programs taking off. Already are. When that happens how could they stop you? Can't sniff encrypted traffic, can't trace a secure proxy connections IP if it’s done well. They can't search your house unless they have evidence for a court order. To quote a musical influence "The times they are a changin". And the music industry needs to cop on and move on. Big time.

If they would embrace the technology more, and reduce prices based on reduced cost, in addition to making it easy to pay (multiple payment methods including online banks and postal orders) then no one would have a problem buying it online.

I'm so sick and tired of being in a country where no one stands up for their rights though. As much as I hate some other countries at least they don't let the state murder the good things in life. Think a move to Germany is in order