Watch out they're coming for you...

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35397-2003Jun26.html

Like it or not the RIAA is gunning for you... If you have even one illegal song on your harddrive they want you bad.

Legally your wrong, you know you shouldn't have 3000 songs ripped from cd's on your IBM clone, but you still visit Kazaa or other PTP boards in order to get the hottest music, old and new.

Up untill now no one has really asked why?

Why do you do it?

Is it for rare songs? Is it the convenince? Or is it to extend your middle finger to the Record industry for one too many crappy songs.  Sound off folks and stop trading songs, ...for now.

[Spriggan]

hey I may not like the heavy handed approach but it is illegal to have any copyrighted song on your harddrive if you didn't payfor it.  I've got anime and J-pop which you can't buy here and the second linkin Park cd.  I own the cd but the record companie has a software block on it so it wont play in a PC as a music CD.  And dang it if I pay for something I want to be able to use it.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

The Record Co's can argue that you can get Anime and J-pop here, you just have to pay more for it.

[Spriggan]

it's not their copyrights so they'd have to get the Japanese record labels in on it two.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

I dont know, its not like most music co's arn't global anymore... How many labels do Viacom and Sony own?

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

Convenience, mostly.

But I'm much mroe interested in why the witch hunt?

Fact: Record sales started their current decline before a significant rise in the popularity of p2p sharing

Fact: CDs are overpriced. If the price was lowered, I'd be much happier about paying for a disc.

Fact: shutting down p2p networks hasn't stymied piracy

Fact: before napster shut down, a study revealed that the heaviest downloaders were also more likely to be the most frequent buyers.

It seems to me that the witch hunt is more about control and/or blame for current poor performance than it is about copyright. Sharing and sampling boost revenue, not decrease. Unless of course you've set yourself up in direct opposition to your target market.

There's a lot of other standard argument about cookie cutter bands which produce short term boosts but ignore long term behavior too, but I'll ignore that.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

If you want me to really answer the question though, I guess I'd say somewhere between Civil Disobedience, cost prohibitations, and convenience.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

What get me chuckling is that the industry plans to collect 120,000 or more for a single song that has been pirated, which makes me laugh because I have seen Saints computer and I have a good idea how far his bank account stretches. If he were  making money off the file sharing, like the networks are, I could see such an exhorbinant price being logical but Im sure that Joe Downloader doesnt have several million dollars to spare.

[Fellfrosch]

This exact same controversy showed up back when radio tape recorders became common, and record labels launched huge ad campaigns telling people not to share tapes because it was stealing music and would destroy the industry. That eventually died down because it was stupid. The difference now is that the music industry is already on the way down, so p2p showed up just in time to be a scapegoat.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

They'd never get that much, even if they tried to get me. For one thing, you can't squeeze water from a stone, like you poitned out. For another thing, they'd have to prove that my "piracy" has lost them that much. and it hasn't. At most, it's lost them $1 per song, as I don't redistribute.

[Mr_Pleasington]

You know I only download live songs that aren't on albums (bootlegs and what not) or songs from albums that I would never buy anyway.  This doesn't justify the illegalness, but it's why I use Kazaa.

If CDs were actually reasonably priced I would have no problem buying them, but they're just not worth $16-18 new anymore.  

Interestingly, artists are now working stuff into their tracks which makes the burnt copies worthless (if I understand it correctly). Both Madonna's new album and Metallica's new album are supposed to feature this.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

Which is fine by me. If the new single is any indication, I have NO intention of EVER listening to anything on Metallica's new album.

[Entsuropi]

Yeah. It was ok at first, but it got very lame very fast.

I never buy music, never have. I would far prefer to buy warhammer, alchol or RPGs. OH and comp games. Since i will never buy them anyway, i feel no great remorse over downloading them.

[Spriggan]

Here's an arcticle about bands that are refuesing to let Itunes and other legal internet download companies carry their songs.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,90962,00.html

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,90814,00.html

[EUOL]

Heh.  Is Metallica crazy?  First they alienate people with their anti-Napster stance (which I respected them for, even though I thought is was a bad PR move) and now this?  Any one alone isn't that bad, but putting them together (Ie, anti-napster, anti I-tunes) is going to get them into trouble with fans.