OT RIAA (WAS:Ringers and Pictures on Sanyo phones)

"Captain" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> First of all the riaa, needs to have better things to do with their time.
> B, if you own a cd, make it into a file and put it on your phone as a
> ringer, that's fine, the free ring tones thing, hell, what is it, 10-20
> seconds maybe of a song, how the hell would the riaa, aka music nazis, like
> people to pay for that. the whole music swapping raid that the riaa is on
> needs to go away, after all, a lot of bands wouldn't be around if people
> didn't sneak in tape recorders and tape their concerts before they became
> filthy rich.
>
> Capt.

I'll agree, if you own a CD, you've paid for the rights to use it for
your own, personal, non-profit uses. You are legaly allowed to make
backup copies, make "mixes" or compilation albums with other CDs that
you legaly own, use it (and copy it) in an educational purpose etc..

If you own a CD, the RIAA would have a hard time if you skipped the
creation / editing steps and downloaded the song from a site. But, if
you download a song that you do not own the rights to, technicaly it
is illegal (copyright violation).

As for the RIAA raids, I agree with them. I can today, buy a CD
burner for uncer $100, and a pack of good CD-R discs (oh, lets say a
20 pack) for $20. Download 20 albums, burn them. That's roughly $300
worth of music I got for $120. Now, the local record stores didn't
make the $300 in sales, so they won't be able to purchase 20 more form
their wholesaler, and so on up.

Sure, we can easily say, that $300 is nothing compared to what the
artists and record labels make, but multiply that by the MILLIONS of
people who download music illegaly, it will show up on album sales (no
one is buying the albums if they're downloading them all), so the band
will have less incentive from the record label to produce another
albun. Since there are less sales, the companies who produce and
create the albums need to make up for lost revinue, so they jack up
the prices of their new albums, thus causing more people to download
the music and so on.

I am pretty sure that if you were a performer (or any line of work)
and someone was acquiring your end result, the end result of months of
work and thousands of dollars, for free and giving it to everyone for
free, cutting deeply into your own sales, and out of your own pocket,
I am pretty sure you'd side with the RIAA very quickly.

---

› See More: OT RIAA (WAS:Ringers and Pictures on Sanyo phones)

In article <[email protected]>,=20
[email protected] says...
> I am pretty sure that if you were a performer (or any line of work)
> and someone was acquiring your end result, the end result of months of
> work and thousands of dollars, for free and giving it to everyone for
> free, cutting deeply into your own sales, and out of your own pocket,
> I am pretty sure you'd side with the RIAA very quickly.
>=20

The problem, though, is that the big music labels don't care about the=20
artists any more than the Kazaa downloaders. I can remember watching=20
one of those MTV "Behind the Music" specials about TLC, and Lisa Lopez,=20
"Left Eye", went through the entire $15 or so per album and they got=20
something like 7 *cents*.

Sorry, but when that much goes to the "infrastructure" the music=20
industry has built for itself, it's time to STOP thinking this is about=20
the artists. No matter who's doing the screwing, it's still the artist=20
getting it in the end.

--=20
-+-
R=D8=DF
O/Siris
I work for SprintPCS
I *don't* speak for them.

TechGeek wrote:
> As for the RIAA raids, I agree with them. I can today, buy a CD
> burner for uncer $100, and a pack of good CD-R discs (oh, lets say a
> 20 pack) for $20. Download 20 albums, burn them. That's roughly $300
> worth of music I got for $120. Now, the local record stores didn't
> make the $300 in sales, so they won't be able to purchase 20 more form
> their wholesaler, and so on up.

But if you didn't have access to a burner, would you have bought all 20
CDs at retail prices? That part doesn't compute, because most people
have a budget they must stick to. So the stores haven't lost 20 CD sales
because you wouldn't have bought that many.

--
John Richards

"John Richards" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> TechGeek wrote:
> > As for the RIAA raids, I agree with them. I can today, buy a CD
> > burner for uncer $100, and a pack of good CD-R discs (oh, lets say a
> > 20 pack) for $20. Download 20 albums, burn them. That's roughly $300
> > worth of music I got for $120. Now, the local record stores didn't
> > make the $300 in sales, so they won't be able to purchase 20 more form
> > their wholesaler, and so on up.
>
> But if you didn't have access to a burner, would you have bought all 20
> CDs at retail prices? That part doesn't compute, because most people
> have a budget they must stick to. So the stores haven't lost 20 CD sales
> because you wouldn't have bought that many.
>
> --
> John Richards

True, but they might have sold 5 or 10 CDs. All of which no one is making
any profit on (expect the mfc and retailer of blank CDs), just because some
souls somewhere on the Earth decided to share their hard drives with the
rest of the world.

Bob

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Bob Smith <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> True, but they might have sold 5 or 10 CDs. All of which no one is making
> any profit on (expect the mfc and retailer of blank CDs), just because some
> souls somewhere on the Earth decided to share their hard drives with the
> rest of the world.
>
> Bob
>

I don't necessarily believe that, although in general it could be true.
For my case, I have purchased very few CDs over the last 10 years, but
MANY before that. I stopped because college and then other hobbies got
in the way. I did download a few MP3 when Napster was up, and for hte
most part, they were deleted. The songs I like enough [the songs that
ticked those nostalgic memories] I actually went out to buy the CD.
There is nothing like having the full package, and teh sound quality is
usually better from the original CD as opposed to a CD made from MP3
sources.

- --

Thomas T. Veldhouse
Key Fingerprint: 2DB9 813F F510 82C2 E1AE 34D0 D69D 1EDC D5EC AED1

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Bob Smith wrote:
> True, but they might have sold 5 or 10 CDs. All of which no one is making
> any profit on (expect the mfc and retailer of blank CDs), just because some
> souls somewhere on the Earth decided to share their hard drives with the
> rest of the world.

Many downloaders are collectors, i.e., packrats. They want a big collection
of songs but rarely have time to listen to but a few. Others delete the song
after listening to it once and deciding they don't like it. Should they have
bought the song first? Still others like a few of the downloaded songs a lot
and they go out and buy the CD. Why? The CD has better audio quality,
and they want to support artists they like. Is this behavior so wrong?

--
John Richards

Ok lets alter the analogy slight.

I hook up my CD recorder to my FM stereo and I hit record.

I do this for 20 CDR.

the result is the EXACT SAME THING and yet this is perfectly legal.

Explain that to me.

Chris Taylor
http://www.nerys.com/


>
> Sure, we can easily say, that $300 is nothing compared to what the
> artists and record labels make, but multiply that by the MILLIONS of
> people who download music illegaly, it will show up on album sales (no
> one is buying the albums if they're downloading them all), so the band
> will have less incentive from the record label to produce another
> albun. Since there are less sales, the companies who produce and
> create the albums need to make up for lost revinue, so they jack up
> the prices of their new albums, thus causing more people to download
> the music and so on.
>
> I am pretty sure that if you were a performer (or any line of work)
> and someone was acquiring your end result, the end result of months of
> work and thousands of dollars, for free and giving it to everyone for
> free, cutting deeply into your own sales, and out of your own pocket,
> I am pretty sure you'd side with the RIAA very quickly.

That logic only works half way. the average person will budget 5 or 6 CD's a
year. it is astonishing how strict this limit is and how accurate it is
across the scale. thats a little over $100 on cd's a year.

the reason the logic is flawed is that it can still be construed as theft.
Intellectually property is not "material" so its harder for people to
comprehend.

but we have precidents. RADIO is free and I can COPY songs off the radio and
its perfectly LEGAL.

now if kazaa was download full quality CD level files (HUGE by the way) I
could understand. but what you are getting from kazaa is to me at least SUB
FM quality. my FM RADIO gives me better quality than most of the mp3's I
download. literally.

Kazaa and the rest are just another kind of "radio" why do the same rules
not apply.

well because mp3 empowers artists. therfore RIAA wants it dead so they rally
behind the red herring of piracy in order to make it look like they are
legitimately attacking "file sharing"

Chris Taylor
http://www.nerys.com/


>
> But if you didn't have access to a burner, would you have bought all 20
> CDs at retail prices? That part doesn't compute, because most people
> have a budget they must stick to. So the stores haven't lost 20 CD sales
> because you wouldn't have bought that many.

actually every CDR manufacturer has to pay a royalty to the music industry
for EVERY SINGLE CDR THEY MAKE.

isn't that nice. you are PAYING the music industry already to make a legal
copy of your own CD. and also paying them to put your Buisness reports on CD
which have nothing to do with music.

Sweet ehh

Chris Taylor
http://www.nerys.com/

> > But if you didn't have access to a burner, would you have bought all 20
> > CDs at retail prices? That part doesn't compute, because most people
> > have a budget they must stick to. So the stores haven't lost 20 CD
sales
> > because you wouldn't have bought that many.

In article <3y9Wb.8385$%[email protected]>,
"John Richards" <[email protected]> wrote:

> Many downloaders are collectors, i.e., packrats. They want a big collection
> of songs but rarely have time to listen to but a few. Others delete the song
> after listening to it once and deciding they don't like it. Should they have
> bought the song first?

iTunes allows you to listen to a snippet before investing your 99 cents.

On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 16:42:23 -0500, Chris Taylor Jr wrote:

> the result is the EXACT SAME THING and yet this is perfectly legal.
>
> Explain that to me.

Okay:

1. It's not the "EXACT SAME THING" because:
a. The radio station is paying for the right to broadcast to
b. an audience who are not, over 99.99% of the time, not making
a permanent recording.

2. It's not "perfectly legal": the "fair use" defined by the Betamax case
was recording for time-shifting, not collecting. TV broadcasters stopped
making a big deal about collectors once they realized they weren't
taking a big hit from VCRs, but they're already hard at work trying to
get the government to force the makers of DVRs to design their systems to
preclude collecting (and possible Napster/Kazaa-style redistribution)
of digital broadcasts. You'll be seeing the TV equivalents of the
RIAA's battles againt Napster, DeCSS, etc. in about 2-4 years.

HTH.

Ran

On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 18:37:51 +0000, John Richards wrote:

> Is this behavior so wrong?

In the case of the "packrats", yes: "I hardly ever drive it" doesn't
make it any less wrong to steal a car. If you want the convenience of
having a copy of a book, CD, or software program handy when you want to
decide you want to read/play/run it, you owe the author the price of
having it.

The "try before buying" examples are just as illegal, but a lot more
defensible on moral/ethical grounds. But, if that's what most
downloaders were actually doing, the record companies wouldn't be taking
a big enough hit to get any sympathy. Especially since most people would
consider it more-or-less "fair use".

Unfortunately, that's not what's happening, so you're pretty much in the
same position as Lot trying to save Sodom and Gomorrah ;-)

Ran

In article <[email protected]>,
"Ran Talbott" <[email protected]> wrote:

> On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 16:42:23 -0500, Chris Taylor Jr wrote:
>
> > the result is the EXACT SAME THING and yet this is perfectly legal.
> >
> > Explain that to me.
>
> Okay:
>
> 1. It's not the "EXACT SAME THING" because:
> a. The radio station is paying for the right to broadcast to
> b. an audience who are not, over 99.99% of the time, not making
> a permanent recording.

Not to mention a recording off the radio is analog to digitally
converted, and of lesser quality than one that is digital all the way.

In article <[email protected]>,
"Ran Talbott" <[email protected]> wrote:

> It's not "perfectly legal": the "fair use" defined by the Betamax case
> was recording for time-shifting, not collecting. TV broadcasters stopped
> making a big deal about collectors once they realized they weren't
> taking a big hit from VCRs, but they're already hard at work trying to
> get the government to force the makers of DVRs to design their systems to
> preclude collecting (and possible Napster/Kazaa-style redistribution)
> of digital broadcasts. You'll be seeing the TV equivalents of the
> RIAA's battles againt Napster, DeCSS, etc. in about 2-4 years.

It's already in progress. Tivo will not allow for automatic skipping of
commercials in its recordings, lest they suffer legal problems. The fact
that the Betamax recorded a show with commercials was the deciding
factor in allowing "time shifting" in the Betamax case.

Ran Talbott wrote:
> On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 18:37:51 +0000, John Richards wrote:
>
>> Is this behavior so wrong?
>
> In the case of the "packrats", yes: "I hardly ever drive it" doesn't
> make it any less wrong to steal a car.

Sorry, that analogy doesn't work. If I steal a car, I deprive the actual
owner/buyer of the use of it. If I copy a CD, it doesn't deprive the
owner/buyer of the CD.
It's not stealing, it's copyright infringement.

--
John Richards