Gov't wants easier internet wiretapping

[lxskllr]

And that is all well and good, but it should be at the discretion of the artist. How they want to market their product is their choice. If they choose to give some away or to charge for each copy, it is their labor that they are selling and therefore their right to decide what to charge and how to conduct marketing and sales.

Saying that anyone can take any album they want for free and decide if they want it later wouldn't work for all artists.

Why should anyone support a failed business model? The point is your fans will support you, and the rest won't. Fighting the natural order of things will just give you a headache. You can DRM all the material you want, but it just punishes your customers. Pirates will always get the music/movies/software, with fewer hassles than the DRMd paying customer has. Pirates aren't your customers. You lose nothing by them downloading your material. You take care of your fans, and they'll take care of you.

[devilock76]

To create. Your real fans will support you. When NIN released the Ghosts album, Trent gave the first one away, and you were supposed to buy the rest. You didn't have to because it was open source, but that was the plan. I went to bittorrent to look for the first album, but said screw it, and downloaded all 4. I liked it so much, I went to the site and paid my $5(very reasonable) for the 4 albums, and I'm not particularly a fan of NIN. I just happened to like that album, and only heard it because it was free. I'll always support quality music. I have around 100gb on my hd, and that's only about 1/3 of my collection. There's very little I didn't pay for, with most of those from people who have been long dead.

This is how you add value, and get people to buy your stuff. First make your product interesting. Second, package it in a form people want, and third, don't treat your customers like criminals...

http://ghosts.nin.com/main/order_options

And there is also a bit of a difference between a new and starting artist and one so established.

Ken

[Bigblue1]

Metallica would have never made it if it weren't for tape trading in their early years. Also the grateful dead encouraged sharing practices which allowed them to to become arguably the biggest drawing touring band of all time Oh and they didn't have to sell premium packages and shit. A ticket was a ticket.......

[lxskllr]

And there is also a bit of a difference between a new and starting artist and one so established.

Ken

Sure, Trent has the name recognition, but the same principle applies to everyone. Before I was broke, I regularly saw bands that traveled the world and sold shows/CDs by their name alone. They may not have had Lady GaGa status, but they were big in the Celtic music circuit. The old way of getting yourself out there isn't the only way.

[truthwolf1]

2 artist views. There was one qoute in the MOby interview where the interviewer state's "13 million songs were for sale online and that 10 million did not get a single buyer. 82 percent of revenue came from 52,000 songs. Less then 1 percent of all the songs. How is apple going to succeed in driving people to buy more digital albums."

[sgreger1]

Bad analogy. It's more like making digital wallpapers for computers, and allowing anyone to use them for non commercial purposes, and you put a donate button on your site. Your real fans will give you money, and the rest won't. One copy costs the same as 1,000,000 copies. To further encourage people to give you money, you sell signed prints on your site that you'll mail out for $x, and with the purchase of a print, you also get a CD that has prototype wallpapers that will never be shown on your site.

Right and that's a good marketing strategy, but it's their content, their product they are selling, and therefore THEY and only THEY may chose how it is sold and for what price. It is up to them if they want to sell it outright or if they want to offer a "donate" button. If they decide to be greedy the market will find ways of providing it cheaper, hence piracy. If music was affordable, piracy would not be prevalent. Just like bread is cheap enough to where the masses aren't stealing it yet. If bread and water were 20$ per portion, you would see a black market emerge. Piracy is just the black market of music/software.

[truthwolf1]

Then why would any artist bother to write new music?

Agreed that most musicians would like to get paid for what they do but the good one's dont really care. Some people just naturally do what they do and if it is at the right time and moment you just might get paid for it.

If you notice it is more the record companies calling foul on this pirating and not the actual musicians. It does I am sure get tricky with signed bands when they want to release freebies to their fans.

[sgreger1]

Metallica would have never made it if it weren't for tape trading in their early years. Also the grateful dead encouraged sharing practices which allowed them to to become arguably the biggest drawing touring band of all time Oh and they didn't have to sell premium packages and shit. A ticket was a ticket.......

I'm not arguing that it's not a successfull marketing strategy, i'm arguing that it is THEIR property and they may choose to sell/promote it as they wish. I don't see what's wrong with that. Do you want government coming in and saying that you MUST offer your product free or only market it in certain ways? Here the government is upholding their right to charge what they ask for, and if someone steals it than it is theft like anything else. Government is just upholding their right to own the fruits of their labor and sell it for whatever value they think will work in the market. They make hundreds of millions so obviously there is a market for it.

[lxskllr]

So what's the argument again? I think we've kind of gotten lost in the details here. This is my position...

Penalties for copyright infringement are egregious, and don't fit the crime. The penalty for downloading music is greater than stealing a crate of CDs off the back of a truck, and not nearly as damaging to anyone.

Pirates aren't your customers. Don't worry about the pirates. They'll do what they want anyway. Cater to your customers, and they'll cater to you.

Copyright has been illegally extended for the benefit of corporations, to the detriment of consumers, and the arts as a whole.

Patents... Software patents are a disaster all around, and stifle creative development, and retard progress. There's no minor tweaks that'll work here. They need to be torn down, and completely rewritten.

[truthwolf1]

I'm not arguing that it's not a successfull marketing strategy, i'm arguing that it is THEIR property and they may choose to sell/promote it as they wish. I don't see what's wrong with that. Do you want government coming in and saying that you MUST offer your product free or only market it in certain ways? Here the government is upholding their right to charge what they ask for, and if someone steals it than it is theft like anything else. Government is just upholding their right to own the fruits of their labor and sell it for whatever value they think will work in the market. They make hundreds of millions so obviously there is a market for it.

I think the reality is that they will never be able to regain what once "was" in the music market. Musicians will have to actually play live shows, sell music to advertisers, market t-shirts/novelty items or become some kind of brand.

Redbox rental is a dollar a movie rental and people still download movies for free. There is no value anymore in what was.

[sgreger1]

So what's the argument again? I think we've kind of gotten lost in the details here. This is my position...

Penalties for copyright infringement are egregious, and don't fit the crime. The penalty for downloading music is greater than stealing a crate of CDs off the back of a truck, and not nearly as damaging to anyone.

Pirates aren't your customers. Don't worry about the pirates. They'll do what they want anyway. Cater to your customers, and they'll cater to you.

Copyright has been illegally extended for the benefit of corporations, to the detriment of consumers, and the arts as a whole.

Patents... Software patents are a disaster all around, and stifle creative development, and retard progress. There's no minor tweaks that'll work here. They need to be torn down, and completely rewritten.

I forgot too. But I agree with everything your saying. Downloading some song on limewire is hardly more offensive than jay walking. A parking ticket is in line if anything lol.



Future technologies will only make this more complicated. Like for example I read that they are going to soon be able to listen to the thought of a person in a paralyzed coma. Can't wait for metallica to sue the first guy who's thinking the lyrics of "One".

[texastorm]

Weird... when I was a child I copied music played freely over the fm airwaves onto cassette tapes and them played them anywhere I chose, I even shared them freely with friends. That was fine. Now when I can copy that same music in a digital format... its no longer fine because the quality of my recording device is better and faster??

I call bullshit.

[lxskllr]

like for example i read that they are going to soon be able to listen to the thought of a person in a paralyzed coma. Can't wait for metallica to sue the first guy who's thinking the lyrics of "one".

lmao!

:^d

[sgreger1]

Weird... when I was a child I copied music played freely over the fm airwaves onto cassette tapes and them played them anywhere I chose, I even shared them freely with friends. That was fine. Now when I can copy that same music in a digital format... its no longer fine because the quality of my recording device is better and faster??

I call bullshit.

It's all a scam to make money, there is no secret about it. I think that obtaining an orriginal of something should require that you pay for it. But to make copies of something that A) you already own or B) is being publicly broacasted, is not even remotely worthy of copyright violation. Recording your favorite singer at a concert or pluging the audio-out cable from your radio into your computer to record a copy of their song should not be illegal. If you bought a song, it's yours, you can play it on any device you can get it into and how ever many times you want. (Some songs expire after 5 years now, can you believe that?!?!?!)


But as far as obtaining the music in the first place, you should buy and and they should be able to sell it. It is a legitimate business arrangement. And despite what many people think, just because it is digital does not mean the cost is 0. Everyone thought that about e-books too. They said that because all those books didn't need to get printed it would be cheaper. Well except for the fact that puting it on paper costs lik 12 cents. Same with audio CD's. CD's don't cost shit, and they have already dropped the price from 13$ per CD to 99 cents a song or less.



Either way, piracy is such an insignificant problem that it should not be the basis on which we pass legislation allowing more government power to shut things down. Piracy should be illigal imo, but one of those things that is frowned upon as opposed to a serious crime like it currently is. Making you pay the $1 per song seems like a reasonable judgement. But some of these courts are saying like $2,500 for each pirated song. Lol, I don't think theres enough money on the planet to pay back what I would owe.

[devilock76]

Sure, Trent has the name recognition, but the same principle applies to everyone. Before I was broke, I regularly saw bands that traveled the world and sold shows/CDs by their name alone. They may not have had Lady GaGa status, but they were big in the Celtic music circuit. The old way of getting yourself out there isn't the only way.

OK agreed, but that does not change the FACT that the artist should be the one who chooses such things.

Ken