Music piracy

[thorpeparkguru]

Question for you then.
When the new BOC album arrives (I'm going to say 'when', not 'if' - positive thinking!) will you buy it?

If so, by which means.

Vinyl and CD... 'nuff said.

And listen to the vinyl on first listen.

[Mexicola]

Also, why does everyone keep calling me Rodeh?

We stole one of your H's. You started it.

[Lens Larque]

If one knows they can afford to pay for it they should. If you are poor as fuck for whatever reason music should be available at the taxpayer's expense.

[Jonse]

Also, why does everyone keep calling me Rodeh?

We stole one of your H's. You started it.

Look, if you don't support piracy as a whole and and you were going to judge me like I've been a self-righteous "piracy is always okay and you should never pay" sort of guy, why did you even bother to ask me things about how/why I pirate? Shouldn't that have been irrelevant to begin with?

I didn't come in here mocking anyone because of their opinion on the topic. If that's what you're going to do then I really have no interest in this conversation.

[Lens Larque]

[A_Northern_Soul]

Rodheh - apologies re your name, my mistake.

The reason why I asked what you do for a living wasn't to work out whether or not you could afford music, but to ask what you'd think if there was suddenly an expectation for you to provide your time and effort for free?

The reason I object to piracy is the reason I object to theft of any kind. It also takes on a personal dimension when it comes to theft of intellectual property.

Why should anyone put their time and energy into making something and not get paid for it. If you can afford to make music/create any kind of art out of love and not rely on it for an income, then that's wonderful. Well done. But do we really want to find out that the new BoC album - as an example - has been held up all this time because the brothers have been busy working in a call centre to pay the bills? Art shouldn't be free....

[Mexicola]

I didn't come in here mocking anyone because of their opinion on the topic. If that's what you're going to do then I really have no interest in this conversation.

You didn't mock anyone, no. You did come out with some frankly thin arguements to try and justify stealing music. I think the bit that knocked me sideways was:

'It's important to look at the reason people pirate things. Often it is because someone lacks the money to purchase something but desires to hear it anyways.'

That has to be, hands down, the weakest excuse I think I've ever heard. I'd like a Ferrari but I can't afford one of those either. I'm not going to go and steal one. Harsh? Overly-dramatic? Perhaps. But you can't justify theft by simply saying 'I couldn't afford it.'

As I've said before in other topics with discussed Rodheh, I'm not trying to mock you. I promise you I would never, ever do that.

But if you genuinely believe that stealing music from major labels someone sticks it to the man, while not hurting the artists at the same time then I'm afraid you're woefully mistaken.

I suspect you download music for the same reason everyone else does: because you can. I've done it too - I've said before that I'm a hypocrite on this subject. But the more and more I look into it, the more I see that the balance has shifted too far in the other direction and that's the point I'm trying to make.

The artist loses out too much now and I'm starting to pay for my music more and more. For example, I've not bought the new Sigur Ros album yet, despite them being one of my favorite bands. I can't afford it - my wife is on maternity leave and we've an extra mouth to feed now. Our household income has plummeted. A few years ago, I'd have just gone and downloaded it but today I can't bring myself to do it. I just don't think it would be fair on an artist I really respect.

Go and read the Mum article again, please.

(and the H comment was meant as a joke. Much like my comment to Snufkin. I'll put a after it next time. I forget our British humour can be somewhat dry).

[Snufkin]

"progressive"

Why is there this belief that something that people have put their time, energy, money and other resources should then just be free?

You wouldn't walk out of a restaurant without paying, would you?

I've lost count of the number of times a potential client has turned to me with "unfortunately we can't pay you, but we will give you full credit". I've checked and I can't pay my mortgage with "credit".

I don't buy the argument either that "downloading makes you buy more music". While it might for some individuals, on the whole it does not.

Re that last point: there's not an argument on that that I've heard; but I have heard a fact reported numerous times that those who pirate more content are also the greatest paying consumers of content too (music, films etc).

FYI: my earlier point re piracy being progressive. This is coming from someone who hasn't pirated content for years. I buy a lot of stuff. I'm a DJ and I buy a lot of vinyl-- including paying more for items such as rare BoC vinyl.

But, again: piracy is progressive.

"Y'arrrr!" ^_^

[and, please note that while I am being honest, I am also being provocative here....]

[Waterbagel]

If one knows they can afford to pay for it they should. If you are poor as fuck for whatever reason music should be available at the taxpayer's expense.

Only problem with that is that it starts to ruin any incentive to buy it in the first place.
Or, at least, getting it for free starts to outweigh the choice of buying it even if you can afford it. Unless we're talking about a sort of "music welfare system", which.. well.. I feel like that'd be just about impossible to enstate/enforce!

[A_Northern_Soul]

Mexicola - I see your music buying budget has gone down now too. All my money goes on nappies. And coffee.

[Jonse]

I didn't come in here mocking anyone because of their opinion on the topic. If that's what you're going to do then I really have no interest in this conversation.

You didn't mock anyone, no. You did come out with some frankly thin arguements to try and justify stealing music. I think the bit that knocked me sideways was:

'It's important to look at the reason people pirate things. Often it is because someone lacks the money to purchase something but desires to hear it anyways.'

That has to be, hands down, the weakest excuse I think I've ever heard. I'd like a Ferrari but I can't afford one of those either. I'm not going to go and steal one. Harsh? Overly-dramatic? Perhaps. But you can't justify theft by simply saying 'I couldn't afford it.'

As I've said before in other topics with discussed Rodheh, I'm not trying to mock you. I promise you I would never, ever do that.

But if you genuinely believe that stealing music from major labels someone sticks it to the man, while not hurting the artists at the same time then I'm afraid you're woefully mistaken.

I suspect you download music for the same reason everyone else does: because you can. I've done it too - I've said before that I'm a hypocrite on this subject. But the more and more I look into it, the more I see that the balance has shifted too far in the other direction and that's the point I'm trying to make.

The artist loses out too much now and I'm starting to pay for my music more and more. For example, I've not bought the new Sigur Ros album yet, despite them being one of my favorite bands. I can't afford it - my wife is on maternity leave and we've an extra mouth to feed now. Our household income has plummeted. A few years ago, I'd have just gone and downloaded it but today I can't bring myself to do it. I just don't think it would be fair on an artist I really respect.

Go and read the Mum article again, please.

(and the H comment was meant as a joke. Much like my comment to Snufkin. I'll put a after it next time. I forget our British humour can be somewhat dry).

Well yeah, when you see something in an entirely different manner than another person it's going to seem pretty thin.

I don't consider myself to be "sticking it to the man". Once again, you're completely making assumptions regarding what I said. I have serious, personal vendettas with some of these huge label conglomerates and I won't support them. Never once did I say I'm making a difference and never once did I say that I'm somehow ethically higher than you because I'm "sticking it to the man" and you're not.

You seem to be giving off the impression that pirating something on the internet is literally stealing it. Stealing, as in theft, as in removing possession of an item from someone and keeping it for yourself. It is at the most copying. UNLESS of course someone puts their album on their site for digital download and I somehow figure out how to manipulate the site into giving me the album for free, in which case I stole your money by requiring you to pay more for bandwidth. If I download an album P2P from someone who bought it and ripped it to a CD, it's really no different then him giving me a copy of that CD, or someone making a tape for me...at least I don't see how it is personally. The most I reasonable thing I can come to is that I guess for some people the change in the scale/rate that this is happening with the internet vs. mixtape/CD-R days is significant enough for them to just now create some principles on the subject.

And I did read the mum article. I actually agree with him in many regards, notably everyone taking action to ensure companies and corporations acknowledge the rights of the artists. Hell, if that happened they'd probably stop with the bullshit and I'd have no problem buying an album of an artist signed to one of those labels.

But the whole thing of "it's not really free to get free music because you payed 1000$ for your computer" I just can't relate to. Those are two totally separate things and neither of them have any inherent connection.

I mean, look at his latter section.

The existential questions that your generation gets to answer are these:

Why do we value the network and hardware that delivers music but not the music itself?

Why are we willing to pay for computers, iPods, smartphones, data plans, and high speed internet access but not the music itself?

Why do we gladly give our money to some of the largest richest corporations in the world but not the companies and individuals who create and sell music?

I know where he's coming from but honestly I'm not the guy that falls under that category of people who pirate. None of those questions apply to me because I DO pay for music when I can and when I find it ethical to do so (i.e. UMG/WMG doesn't take any of my money).

Time and time again, people assume the same things. They assume that it's all "my generation" that pirates and we all do it "because we don't want to spend money on music" or some bullshit like that. Whatever, it's getting tiring trying to explain my point of view on the situation.

I just thought I'd come in here and share it. You don't need to accept and support it/nor do I need to yours.

[Jonse]

Rodheh - apologies re your name, my mistake.

The reason why I asked what you do for a living wasn't to work out whether or not you could afford music, but to ask what you'd think if there was suddenly an expectation for you to provide your time and effort for free?

The reason I object to piracy is the reason I object to theft of any kind. It also takes on a personal dimension when it comes to theft of intellectual property.

Why should anyone put their time and energy into making something and not get paid for it. If you can afford to make music/create any kind of art out of love and not rely on it for an income, then that's wonderful. Well done. But do we really want to find out that the new BoC album - as an example - has been held up all this time because the brothers have been busy working in a call centre to pay the bills? Art shouldn't be free....

Well I can't speak on the matter of "an expectation for you to provide your time and effort for free", but I can put myself directly in the place of an artist on an independent label. If my album was being pirated to a heavy degree, I wouldn't care the slightest. In fact, I'd want it to get pirated because more people are most likely going to hear it that way. It's also notable to say that if I were in this situation I wouldn't have attempted to make it my career/way of making a living.

If someone put their time and energy into something and what they desired out of it ultimately was finance, then that's fine and they can pursue a way to make that happen. Hopefully their choice is one that everyone will back (sites like bandcamp come to mind right now). Piracy still will always exist though for whatever reason and you have to factor that unpredictability into play.

As for Boards, if they came out and said "we're short on money" and put a donate button on their site, I would donate A LOT to help their cause, and the same goes for any other independent artist who may be struggling that I happen to enjoy.

Now for that "art shouldn't be free" thing...that's a pretty seriously stated opinion. Do you also thing that art intended to be free shouldn't be free? Or art intended for the listener to determine the value shouldn't be free?

If one knows they can afford to pay for it they should. If you are poor as fuck for whatever reason music should be available at the taxpayer's expense.

Only problem with that is that it starts to ruin any incentive to buy it in the first place.
Or, at least, getting it for free starts to outweigh the choice of buying it even if you can afford it. Unless we're talking about a sort of "music welfare system", which.. well.. I feel like that'd be just about impossible to enstate/enforce!

Pretty sure that was a joke comment he made.

[A_Northern_Soul]

"If my album was being pirated to a heavy degree, I wouldn't care the slightest. In fact, I'd want it to get pirated because more people are most likely going to hear it that way. It's also notable to say that if I were in this situation I wouldn't have attempted to make it my career/way of making a living."

Very noble. Any artist or anyone working in a creative field wants their work to be seen by as wide an audience as possible. If - in that position - you'd "want your work to be pirated" to be heard as widely as possible, that's great, but it's also a luxury. You also say that in that position you wouldn't attempt to make it your career or way of living. Possibly because you know it's unsustainable due to pirating? Then imagine yourself in the position of someone who DID want to make art (in this case music) their career, but were unable to scratch a living. Should they just give up? Compromise and take any old job?

It's easy to point the finger at big record companies who admittedly did take the piss for years, but what lower profits for them means now is a battening down of the hatches - low risk, high return investments (ie populist, cheap rubbish).

Re my comments on "art should not be free" - to clarify (which I should have done initially), I meant that artists should be paid fairly for their work - if they wish to be (and frankly they should). Great art is hard, it takes time, energy and resources. Artists should be rewarded as such.

It seems your issue lies more with the labels and means if distribution. Clearly, these companies are far from perfect (like all companies, their #1 obligation is to deliver a maximum return to their shareholders), but stealing music (and it IS stealing) does not hurt them as much as it hurts the artist at the bottom of the food chain.

[Mexicola]

I give up. It's like talking to a pedantic 12 year old.

[Jonse]

"If my album was being pirated to a heavy degree, I wouldn't care the slightest. In fact, I'd want it to get pirated because more people are most likely going to hear it that way. It's also notable to say that if I were in this situation I wouldn't have attempted to make it my career/way of making a living."

Very noble. Any artist or anyone working in a creative field wants their work to be seen by as wide an audience as possible. If - in that position - you'd "want your work to be pirated" to be heard as widely as possible, that's great, but it's also a luxury. You also say that in that position you wouldn't attempt to make it your career or way of living. Possibly because you know it's unsustainable due to pirating? Then imagine yourself in the position of someone who DID want to make art (in this case music) their career, but were unable to scratch a living. Should they just give up? Compromise and take any old job?

It's easy to point the finger at big record companies who admittedly did take the piss for years, but what lower profits for them means now is a battening down of the hatches - low risk, high return investments (ie populist, cheap rubbish).

Re my comments on "art should not be free" - to clarify (which I should have done initially), I meant that artists should be paid fairly for their work - if they wish to be (and frankly they should). Great art is hard, it takes time, energy and resources. Artists should be rewarded as such.

It seems your issue lies more with the labels and means if distribution. Clearly, these companies are far from perfect (like all companies, their #1 obligation is to deliver a maximum return to their shareholders), but stealing music (and it IS stealing) does not hurt them as much as it hurts the artist at the bottom of the food chain.

Well I don't believe pirating has made it "unsustainable". It was never easy to become a musician and make a good living off of it. There's so many more people who didn't make it from than those who did, regardless of time period. You have to really sell some sort of image if you want to make lots of cash in this field and I'm not interested in that.

My advice to that person would be to find a way to make it work. Try and sign to a bigger label. I myself may not support that artist at that point, but broadly they're probably going to generate more revenue if that's really what they want.

My issue entirely lies with the labels and means of distribution. That's pretty much been my point the entire time. Like I said, of the few artists that I will not purchase their work due to their affiliation with a label I don't like, I have supported them in other ways that don't give money to that label. If there's a situation where there's no way to do that and I absolutely have to hear the album for some reason, then I guess that's collateral damage if my one lost sale (still don't consider it stealing, as it does not take anything except for hypothetical funds that were never paid to begin with) is a problem to that artist. If they'd put up a PayPal donation button I'd give them some money.

That situation happens so rarely for me though that it's absurd when I hear all this criticism like it's the foundation of my piracy. Most of everything I pirate is for the intention of seeing whether I like an album, later paid back by donations to the artist/purchase of the albums (since 90% of the people I listen to are on independent labels) with only about 5% (probably a total of 3-4 artists) of music I downloaded from an artist on a label I don't want to give money to. Oddly enough, the most prominent of these 3-4 artists for me has expressed his desire that you actually do pirate all of his music that was released on Interscope, multiple times since the contractual dissolution.

Really Northern Soul, I think that artists should be fairly compensated as well. I really, really do and my intention whenever I've pirated something is never to screw them over. I always make amends whenever possible and I'm constantly encouraging my friends (who pirate much more so than I do) to do the same. Please don't paint me as this straw man internet pirate.

[A_Northern_Soul]

That was never my intention. Clearly neither of us is going to convince each other that the others' opinion is right.

I'm glad that you appreciate the need for artists to be compensated - something I think very few take into consideration while stockpiling TBs of STOLEN music. Like I say, this annoyance that those in creative fields aren't fairly compensated for their efforts comes from a VERY personal viewpoint (*checks bank balance. Weeps*).

Thanks for stimulating such an interesting debate.

[Jonse]

That was never my intention. Clearly neither of us is going to convince each other that the others' opinion is right.

I'm glad that you appreciate the need for artists to be compensated - something I think very few take into consideration while stockpiling TBs of STOLEN music. Like I say, this annoyance that those in creative fields aren't fairly compensated for their efforts comes from a VERY personal viewpoint (*checks bank balance. Weeps*).

Thanks for stimulating such an interesting debate.

I apologize if I came off trying to convince you or another that I am somehow objectively right about all this. Initially I just felt there were a few discrepancies in the mum letter and just had some comments about it, which turned into completely something else. Thanks for being understanding.

Just a quick question though regarding that "bank balance" thing, are you saying you pirate music as well?

[A_Northern_Soul]

Re the bank balance thing - no, I don't pirate music. That was reference to the fact that I'm a photographer and unfortunately there is a widespread expectation that I should be happy to work for free.

No need to apologise - we're clearly never going to agree on this issue, it's been a great debate though

[Jonse]

Re the bank balance thing - no, I don't pirate music. That was reference to the fact that I'm a photographer and unfortunately there is a widespread expectation that I should be happy to work for free.

No need to apologise - we're clearly never going to agree on this issue, it's been a great debate though

Alright, that's good. Was concerned you might be hypocritical about all this. Glad you aren't.

And I meant I was apologizing if it seemed like I wanted to argue your view on this issue, which I don't like to do anymore because internet arguments rarely amount to anything gained, but if you insist, then nevermind the apology.

Nice talking to you though.

[Lens Larque]

If one knows they can afford to pay for it they should. If you are poor as fuck for whatever reason music should be available at the taxpayer's expense.

Only problem with that is that it starts to ruin any incentive to buy it in the first place.
Or, at least, getting it for free starts to outweigh the choice of buying it even if you can afford it. Unless we're talking about a sort of "music welfare system", which.. well.. I feel like that'd be just about impossible to enstate/enforce!

Ruining the incentive is, i guess, my point. The character or irresponsibility--if you know that you can afford it, you should, and there I meant exchange for it. But if a person or family cannot afford an mp3 dl or vinyl to enrich their lives because of many car payments or a housing payment and food payments, there should also be not unlike "food stamps" some kind of music benefit. This new office will cost millions of additional tax-dollars. And it is called sometimes a public library.