Morpheus Mac [Archive] - MacRumors Forums

Gelfin

Feb 19, 2002, 05:01 AM

Originally posted by aristademis
I'm waiting for Napster to come back. Yes, it will be a paid service at $5-$10 per month. Yes, I could get the files through a freware program. But, the problem that I run into is that the freeware programs that I use don't have as much selestion as Napster did and will have again. I use Limewire, and half the time it won't work, or crashes, or calls me names like "spoondiggle"-okay, cross off the last one. So, I'm going to be one of the few, at least for now, that will wait and use Napster when it comes available in a month or two.

I wouldn't count on Napster coming back as anything you'd actually want to use. I used to be indirectly connected to the music industry (yeah, I've done lotsa different things), and I gotta tell you, there is no way in hell the RIAA will be content to let you use Napster the way you remember it for $5-10 per month. If they thought you'd pay it, they'd find a way to charge you $5-10 per listen. What you'll get for your $5-10 per month is just enough service to keep you paying (or maybe not -- I don't think any tears would be shed if a revived Napster just tanked outright), but it'll be so limited as to make you think it'd be less hassle to just buy the album.

The music industry operates something like a cross between a trust racket and a mafia organization. They use lawsuits instead of drive-by shootings, but it's still the case that the only thing that keeps the peace is an unbelievably complex and rigid organizational structure by which everyone gets his cut. I'm fairly convinced that the only way the music industry we have today is even legal is that it's such a complicated operation that it's impossible to grasp enough of it at one time to build a case for regulating it. Anyhow, digital music distribution totally upsets the balance of the economy in the industry. Laissez-faire digital distribution would result in lower costs for some organizations, while other organizations become altogether obsolete. For this reason, the music industry will have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the Internet Age.

AmbitiousLemon

Feb 19, 2002, 05:38 AM

wel said gel boy.

and aristademis im going to have to refer you to the Napster Returns thread (http://www.macrumors.com/forums/showthread.php3?s=&threadid=1436&highlight=napster+returns) take a look at the limitations they are putting on the new napster. no mp3s! .nap files. its kinda crazy. o and guess what no mac application is even in development right now. You do recall that napster never released a mac client dont you? we had a third party application called macster that eventually got bought buy napster but development ended as soon as it was acquired. dont hold your breath for napster.

Morpheus will be the best thing when it comes out. i think this is great news... in the mean time id have to say the best way to get mp3s is to use Drumbeat (http://www.drumbeat.info) its not the greatest application but it shows ssome potencial, and the authors are very responsive to requests. ok so they want you to pay for it, but finding serials is no problem. frankly drumbeat seems every bit as functional as napster ever was. check it out maybe you will be pleasantly surprised.

748s

Feb 19, 2002, 06:21 AM

gelfin.....on the money!.........i'm sure they are thinking of how to dump the lawsuits and go for drive-bys......it will save them money. i was on the edges of the "industry". they made sure you knew your place. we got monthly threats of licences being revoked.

mymemory

Feb 19, 2002, 06:25 AM

I can not imagine a person using limewire, is the cheapest ussless piece of crap ever, the interface is fine but is slow and defintly unreliable. To use limewire is like using an Atari 512ST for 3D rendering.

Now, Morpheus seems to be very different, at list is popular, that means lots of options and files to choos from, I'll be expecting it.

detroitsuperfly

Feb 19, 2002, 07:12 AM

So all you goody 2 shoes who think it's wrong to steal from the artists need to realize that the record labels own artists in much like a slave fashion. new artists sign contracts that send ALL of the royalties back to the record label for THREE albums. If any of those albums shows a loss, the artists os held liable for the debt. Promotion and management costs are also handled by the artist. It's not unusual to have artists go into $1 million debt. In the case of established artists, many of them make perhaps 40¢ per CD. 40¢ divided by 12 songs means you are stealing 3.33¢ per song from the established artists.
Pardon me for not feeling guilty for stealing the profits of the profits stolen by corporate labels. Artists make thier real money by touring. Not from CDs.

I'm so glad Morpheus will be available for Mac. Limewire is great, I'll still use it for Apps. But getting tied to a larger community is what music sharing is all about.

GPTurismo

Feb 19, 2002, 09:41 AM

YAY! No more Virtual PC 5 :D:D

blindman858

Feb 19, 2002, 09:57 AM

Hey guys will morpheus be running for both os x and os 9 because i am one of the few mac users who hasnt been able to get os x yet :(. I will get it in a year o so with a new system.

blakespot

Feb 19, 2002, 10:42 AM

Originally posted by mymemory
I can not imagine a person using limewire, is the cheapest ussless piece of crap ever, the interface is fine but is slow and defintly unreliable. To use limewire is like using an Atari 512ST for 3D rendering.

There was an Atari 520ST and an Atari 1040ST, and some other ST's after that--but no 512ST. Though the 520ST did have 512K of RAM, interestingly. "Power without the price" and all that what.

http://www.atari-museum.de/520st.jpg

Had to step in.

blakespot

blakespot

Feb 19, 2002, 10:44 AM

I find it interesting that no one has mentioned Audiogalaxy (http://www.audiogalaxy.com). It's a combination web-page / client app system. Used along with a nice OS X client, like Satellite (see versiontracker), it's far and away the best way of finding MP3's -- soars above all other sharing networks.

blakespot

Timothy

Feb 19, 2002, 11:06 AM

I've got to take issue here. I am always amazed when these discussions break out that no one apparently cares that they are in actuality committing theft.

I am very familiar with the music industry. I don't like the major record labels, and I think bands that sign deals with them are being stupid to do so. But, that doesn't give me license then to steal music just because I don't like them. Theft is theft, no matter how you try to justify it with twisted logic as has been exhibited on this thread. I don't like microsoft, but I still think it's theft to take their software without paying for it.

If you don't like the music industry, the real answer is to support independent music by BUYING music directly from artists who have chosen not to sign deals with the major labels. But, most of you have probably never done this. You still want your major-label bands, you just prefer to steal your music.

If you want to change the industry, get out and support independent music. Stop listening to major label bands. Stop watching MTV. Stop listening to commercial radio. These are real actions that have real effect. Attempting to justify your theft is ridiculous.

blakespot

Feb 19, 2002, 11:48 AM

There are plenty of legal MP3's to be had on all these networks.

blakespot

Gelfin

Feb 19, 2002, 11:49 AM

And you know, I don't think we'd be missing that much by avoiding the major labels. I mean, gosh, could civilization survive without more idiotic high-gloss boy bands and manufactured girl superstars? I sure wish we could be given the chance to find out.

dutchmaster

Feb 19, 2002, 11:53 AM

spare us your lecture and advice. if i hear one more self-righteous fool drone on about the 'theft' of music on the net, and follow their holier-than-thou drivel with a pathetic entreaty to 'support the independent music scene', i'm gonna puke all over my spankin' new iMac's pristine white keyboard. i'm an 'independent musician' and i've seen my own music on napster, etc.. and frankly, i don't care. do us all a favor and save your masturbatory posturing for your zine, blog, life-partner, or therapist.

blackpeter

Feb 19, 2002, 12:40 PM

Let's remember that these programs allow fans of music to share what they love with others, and that the 'theft' of music is not a product of Morpheus, Napster, Limewire, etc...

It is a product of continuous, industry wide price inflation. It is a product of not giving the people what they want: affordable music.

Titanic was made for what? 100 million dollars* And we can buy the DVD for $15.

The White Album was made for what? 100 thousand dollars* (if that...) And we have to pay $30 to get it on CD?!?! Where's the beef??

Timothy

Feb 19, 2002, 01:15 PM

Dutch...again, nice attempt to justify theft.

If you, personally, want to share your music via napster, that is fine. You are completely free to give your music away for free to anyone who wants it. I encourage independent artists to do so. I think it is a primary tool for establishing a following. But, you are not in a contractual agreement with another business not to do so, so sharing your music doesn't violate any laws. That makes all of the difference...

Are you trying to argue that Napstering Major Label releases is not theft? I'd like to see your argument.

Timothy

Feb 19, 2002, 01:18 PM

So, tFaz...if I think something is overpriced, you think I'm justified in just taking it? Is that your reasoning?

Hmmm...perhaps that new dual 1ghz machine is a bit steep, I might as well just liberate it from the shelf of my local computer store.

Is that really the stance you are asserting?

mischief

Feb 19, 2002, 01:21 PM

The whole business is screwed up. This will phoenix it and the Artists will benifit in the end. Get over it, the djinn is out of the bottle.

jadam

Feb 19, 2002, 01:36 PM

Do you guys know the capabilities of morhpeus. Morpheus is not only for songs, there are a whole lot of Divx movies that you can download and music videos, not to mention programs, here comes mac warez... not to mention a **** load of music

Timothy

Feb 19, 2002, 01:42 PM

Mischief...extortion of who? The artists, with stars in their eyes and a few bucks in their pockets willingly sign these deals. And, not all of them are terrible.

Again, what is it that you are arguing for? What is the "principle" at play here? That you are free to steal anything that you think is unfair? Its not like we are talking about basic necessities like food here, we are talking about entertainment. If you don't like the product, if you don't think an album is worth a whole $13.99, then don't buy it. But, don't try to pretend that taking it off of Napster is not stealing.

How about software? Should I take a program such as BBEdit off of Morpheus and not pay for it?

Biggles

Feb 19, 2002, 02:16 PM

Finally we get morpheus! I just hope it isn't a half-assed port.

By the way, for all you people wanting good music now, download sputnix from versiontracker.com. It really is a fantastic program, but all you can get is songs. It destroys Limewire in everyway possible.

blackpeter

Feb 19, 2002, 02:19 PM

Look at what's happening Tim... Because the "theft" that is taking place online is working to change things.

Already the recording industry is comming to grips with the fact that they just don't have THAT much money to keep sueing every little P2P that comes along. Napster is proving to them that the they can't stop file swapping - it simply has become a fact of net life (much like privacy and security are).

So what's happening?

Soon we'll see sites that offer Hollywood films for very little money. The content and quality is guaranteed, the experience is easy and painless, and the customer (as well as the business) get what he/she wants. It's plain to see that Hollywood is living in the real-world.

Who would want to be the recording industry right now? Not only did they miss out on making even MORE money with their product - they are SPENDING money on their mistakes.

Ouch... so instead of paying a small price for a guaranteed, high bit-rate download of the music I want, I'll "steal" it with far less quality and efficency. My experience isn't great... but it's the only thing that the recording industry has left me with.

Oh, but I grow tired...

At least when I want to see "The Royal Tenenbaums" from the comfort of my own G4, I won't have to fellate myself with the in's and out's this moral dilemma. By then I'll just sign on, pay the bill, and watch - knowing that the Wilson brothers will get their check from me.

But that's only my simple little dream... maybe you have another.

Timothy

Feb 19, 2002, 02:27 PM

You seem to be mixing your arguments.

I gurantee you that the movie industry, in the near future, will not be releasing any feature-length movies via download without some method to secure that digital file. Sure, they will develop technology to allow what you are suggesting, but they will make you pay for the use of the movie. And, I'll even bet that the pricing structure will not be too disimilar to current VHS and DVD rental prices. The only difference will be system of delivery.

The music industry will adapt as well. However, they will never provide the music for free with no restrictions on its use. In this way, they will operate very much like the movie industry. I don't really see the difference between the two that you are attempting to define. Perhaps you can clarify?

Stealing is stealing in either scenario.

mischief

Feb 19, 2002, 02:39 PM

Nobody's saying this stuff sould be given away, we're just saying that the existing system is a Racket that benefits the Labels more than the consumer or Artist.

The technology for a paid download that DOESN'T expire is what the labels should use for their paid service and CDs should be selling for about 1/3 what they are now.

Just because the status Quo wraps itself in Copywrite law doesn't mean its the best solution. Do you think it's right to be encarcerated for a substance abuse problem or put in jail for Life just because you have (any) 3 felonies?

If I go to a concert, should I have to pay to remember the music?

What these companies are doing is far more outrageous than swapping a few files.

SPG

Feb 19, 2002, 02:41 PM

The entertainment industry is itself a double edged sword, the system that forces you to pay $20 for a DVD that costs $1 to manufacture allows the multi million dollar spectacles like Titanic to be made. It also forces anyone who can't sell 50million albums to languish in label slavery. There are alternatives and solutions will arise.
Right now, P2P, dubbing, bootlegging, even used CD stores, all take money away from the bigger artists and record labels and to a lesser extent the up and coming artist. It is no wonder that the record companies will do whatever they can to hold on to their system that keeps the money coming in. We can all see that it won't last the way it is now, and that some of the labels or artists will do what Marillion* did...use the net to organize their fan base to finance their own albums and tour.
*no I don't like the band, just their forward thinking approach to getting their music to their fans.

The P2P system is also taxing other intellectual property mediums as well. Movies (another ********* system) are being ripped and distributed online next to software, books, and anything that can be converted to a digital format. Without a financial reward for publishing, how many people can continue to create? The system as it stands now is flawed, and P2P is making it worse for some who fight it, but if it is embraced can the artists thrive on it? Would a pay what you like honor system work? A tax for broadband customers that is distributed to the artists that are downloaded? A donation database that goes directly to the artists (or a charity if they choose) so people can pay something for what they download?

Sorry for the long rant, just some thoughts as I've seen some of my own work being swapped online.

Jookbox

Feb 19, 2002, 02:55 PM

this is cool. morpheus is amazing. i've been using it for a while now.

arn

Feb 19, 2002, 02:56 PM

In general, I agree with Tim... with some realisitc caveats...

first - no matter how you argue it, justify it, etc... it is stealing. Intellectual property that wasn't intended to be distrubuted freely. Especially with networks such as morpheus which also distribute applications (ie warez)...

however... these networks are a reality, and easy enough to get to... it is a personal line that you have to draw regarding use...

for good or bad -- in our society, copying music has never been considered taboo. Mix tapes (fair use) and copying songs for a friend have just been the norm... so moving this over to the online world hasn't taken much of a stretch for the general public... that's why Napster took off. I'm sure that if Napster distrubted "warez" instead of MP3's, that it wouldn't have been so openly popular... and would have gotten shut down much quicker.

Anyhow... I think the music industry is aware of this moral oversight regarding music... and they're going to have to deal with it... the details of which are being worked out now...

arn

Unregistered

Feb 19, 2002, 03:18 PM

Someone should steal ARn's "dessk" and throw it in the gutter....Now, that's entertainment!

mischief

Feb 19, 2002, 03:34 PM

The existing response is greedy and Draconian. Continuing to sell CD's at potentially HIGHER prices that most likely won't play on 1/2 my equipment? Screw that! These tactics were my stimulus to use the P2P systems and I'm sure I'm not alone. P2Ping Software (other than M$) and Movies is pretty low though. I buy CD's pretty exclusively used as regular prices are just STUPIDLY high for 1-3 decent songs per Album and knowing that the Artists don't neccesarily bennefit directly...........It just pisses me off. Music wise, everybody is getting screwed here. The Labels are choosing greed over common sense and consumers are responding by effectively boycotting them. That's all. I feel I should be free to boycott any product that sux.

Most of my use of P2P has been concert-unique bootlegs and remixes anyway. Does Jimi hendrix feel screwed because I have a BBC bootleg of him playing Cream songs? I think not. Does Cypress Hill or MTV feel screwed because I have a Remix of "Insane in the Membrane-Cornholio version".

Legality is not morallity and morallity is a subjective concept.

AmbitiousLemon

Feb 19, 2002, 03:40 PM

i was going to paraphase this and add a bit of my own opinion, but im really busy right now and gotta run so here you go:

Why Software Should Not Have Owners
by Richard Stallman

Digital information technology contributes to the world by making it easier to copy and modify information. Computers
promise to make this easier for all of us.

Not everyone wants it to be easier. The system of copyright gives software programs ``owners'', most of whom aim to
withhold software's potential benefit from the rest of the public. They would like to be the only ones who can copy and modify
the software that we use.

The copyright system grew up with printing---a technology for mass production copying. Copyright fit in well with this
technology because it restricted only the mass producers of copies. It did not take freedom away from readers of books. An
ordinary reader, who did not own a printing press, could copy books only with pen and ink, and few readers were sued for
that.

Digital technology is more flexible than the printing press: when information has digital form, you can easily copy it to share it
with others. This very flexibility makes a bad fit with a system like copyright. That's the reason for the increasingly nasty and
draconian measures now used to enforce software copyright. Consider these four practices of the Software Publishers
Association (SPA):
Massive propaganda saying it is wrong to disobey the owners to help your friend.
Solicitation for stool pigeons to inform on their coworkers and colleagues.

Raids (with police help) on offices and schools, in which people are told they must prove they are innocent of illegal copying.

Prosecution (by the US government, at the SPA's request) of people such as MIT's David LaMacchia, not for copying software
(he is not accused of copying any), but merely for leaving copying facilities unguarded and failing to censor their use.

All four practices resemble those used in the former Soviet Union, where every copying machine had a guard to prevent
forbidden copying, and where individuals had to copy information secretly and pass it from hand to hand as ``samizdat''. There
is of course a difference: the motive for information control in the Soviet Union was political; in the US the motive is profit.
But it is the actions that affect us, not the motive. Any attempt to block the sharing of information, no matter why, leads to the
same methods and the same harshness.

Owners make several kinds of arguments for giving them the power to control how we use information:

Name calling.
Owners use smear words such as ``piracy'' and ``theft'', as well as expert terminology such as ``intellectual property'' and
``damage'', to suggest a certain line of thinking to the public---a simplistic analogy between programs and physical objects.

Our ideas and intuitions about property for material objects are about whether it is right to take an object away from someone
else. They don't directly apply to making a copy of something. But the owners ask us to apply them anyway.

Exaggeration.
Owners say that they suffer ``harm'' or ``economic loss'' when users copy programs themselves. But the copying has no direct
effect on the owner, and it harms no one. The owner can lose only if the person who made the copy would otherwise have
paid for one from the owner.

A little thought shows that most such people would not have bought copies. Yet the owners compute their ``losses'' as if each
and every one would have bought a copy. That is exaggeration---to put it kindly.

The law.
Owners often describe the current state of the law, and the harsh penalties they can threaten us with. Implicit in this approach is
the suggestion that today's law reflects an unquestionable view of morality---yet at the same time, we are urged to regard these
penalties as facts of nature that can't be blamed on anyone.

This line of persuasion isn't designed to stand up to critical thinking; it's intended to reinforce a habitual mental pathway.

It's elementary that laws don't decide right and wrong. Every American should know that, forty years ago, it was against the
law in many states for a black person to sit in the front of a bus; but only racists would say sitting there was wrong.

Natural rights.
Authors often claim a special connection with programs they have written, and go on to assert that, as a result, their desires
and interests concerning the program simply outweigh those of anyone else---or even those of the whole rest of the world.
(Typically companies, not authors, hold the copyrights on software, but we are expected to ignore this discrepancy.)

To those who propose this as an ethical axiom---the author is more important than you---I can only say that I, a notable
software author myself, call it bunk.

But people in general are only likely to feel any sympathy with the natural rights claims for two reasons.

One reason is an overstretched analogy with material objects. When I cook spaghetti, I do object if someone else eats it,
because then I cannot eat it. His action hurts me exactly as much as it benefits him; only one of us can eat the spaghetti, so the
question is, which? The smallest distinction between us is enough to tip the ethical balance.

But whether you run or change a program I wrote affects you directly and me only indirectly. Whether you give a copy to
your friend affects you and your friend much more than it affects me. I shouldn't have the power to tell you not to do these
things. No one should.

The second reason is that people have been told that natural rights for authors is the accepted and unquestioned tradition of our
society.

As a matter of history, the opposite is true. The idea of natural rights of authors was proposed and decisively rejected when the
US Constitution was drawn up. That's why the Constitution only permits a system of copyright and does not require one; that's
why it says that copyright must be temporary. It also states that the purpose of copyright is to promote progress---not to
reward authors. Copyright does reward authors somewhat, and publishers more, but that is intended as a means of modifying
their behavior.

The real established tradition of our society is that copyright cuts into the natural rights of the public---and that this can only be
justified for the public's sake.

Economics.
The final argument made for having owners of software is that this leads to production of more software.

Unlike the others, this argument at least takes a legitimate approach to the subject. It is based on a valid goal---satisfying the
users of software. And it is empirically clear that people will produce more of something if they are well paid for doing so.

But the economic argument has a flaw: it is based on the assumption that the difference is only a matter of how much money
we have to pay. It assumes that ``production of software'' is what we want, whether the software has owners or not.

People readily accept this assumption because it accords with our experiences with material objects. Consider a sandwich, for
instance. You might well be able to get an equivalent sandwich either free or for a price. If so, the amount you pay is the only
difference. Whether or not you have to buy it, the sandwich has the same taste, the same nutritional value, and in either case
you can only eat it once. Whether you get the sandwich from an owner or not cannot directly affect anything but the amount
of money you have afterwards.

This is true for any kind of material object---whether or not it has an owner does not directly affect what it is, or what you can
do with it if you acquire it.

But if a program has an owner, this very much affects what it is, and what you can do with a copy if you buy one. The
difference is not just a matter of money. The system of owners of software encourages software owners to produce
something---but not what society really needs. And it causes intangible ethical pollution that affects us all.
What does society need? It needs information that is truly available to its citizens---for example, programs that people can read,
fix, adapt, and improve, not just operate. But what software owners typically deliver is a black box that we can't study or
change.

Society also needs freedom. When a program has an owner, the users lose freedom to control part of their own lives.

And above all society needs to encourage the spirit of voluntary cooperation in its citizens. When software owners tell us that
helping our neighbors in a natural way is ``piracy'', they pollute our society's civic spirit.

This is why we say that free software is a matter of freedom, not price.

The economic argument for owners is erroneous, but the economic issue is real. Some people write useful software for the
pleasure of writing it or for admiration and love; but if we want more software than those people write, we need to raise funds.

For ten years now, free software developers have tried various methods of finding funds, with some success. There's no need
to make anyone rich; the median US family income, around $35k, proves to be enough incentive for many jobs that are less
satisfying than programming.

For years, until a fellowship made it unnecessary, I made a living from custom enhancements of the free software I had written.
Each enhancement was added to the standard released version and thus eventually became available to the general public.
Clients paid me so that I would work on the enhancements they wanted, rather than on the features I would otherwise have
considered highest priority.

AmbitiousLemon

Feb 19, 2002, 03:40 PM

message too long!

heres the rest...

The Free Software Foundation (FSF), a tax-exempt charity for free software development, raises funds by selling GNU
CD-ROMs, T-shirts, manuals, and deluxe distributions, (all of which users are free to copy and change), as well as from
donations. It now has a staff of five programmers, plus three employees who handle mail orders.

Some free software developers make money by selling support services. Cygnus Support, with around 50 employees [when
this article was written], estimates that about 15 per cent of its staff activity is free software development---a respectable
percentage for a software company.

Companies including Intel, Motorola, Texas Instruments and Analog Devices have combined to fund the continued
development of the free GNU compiler for the language C. Meanwhile, the GNU compiler for the Ada language is being
funded by the US Air Force, which believes this is the most cost-effective way to get a high quality compiler. [Air Force
funding ended some time ago; the GNU Ada Compiler is now in service, and its maintenance is funded commercially.]

All these examples are small; the free software movement is still small, and still young. But the example of listener-supported
radio in this country [the US] shows it's possible to support a large activity without forcing each user to pay.

As a computer user today, you may find yourself using a proprietary (18k characters) program. If your friend asks to make a
copy, it would be wrong to refuse. Cooperation is more important than copyright. But underground, closet cooperation does
not make for a good society. A person should aspire to live an upright life openly with pride, and this means saying ``No'' to
proprietary software.

You deserve to be able to cooperate openly and freely with other people who use software. You deserve to be able to learn
how the software works, and to teach your students with it. You deserve to be able to hire your favorite programmer to fix it
when it breaks.

You deserve free software.

Unregistered

Feb 19, 2002, 03:47 PM

I think those RIAA executives should cut down on their crack and coke habits and maybe they wouldn't be so uptight about consumers exercising fair use. Those execs worried about losing their $2000-3000 weekly spending money for coke so they try to sue every p2p provider as they can.

mischief

Feb 19, 2002, 03:51 PM

Free The Data! Freedom of Information is noticeably absent from the US constitution. If you want that and you're American, move North 1 country and pay your $1000.00 entrance fee. Good talent is always appreciated in Canada.;)

kiwi_the_iwik

Feb 19, 2002, 04:25 PM

Just to play Devil's Advocate here for a minute...

Listening to some of the big names in the recording industry recently, such as the Foo Fighters and Madonna (who incidentally has her own label), I was interested to hear their stance on Napster, and other P2P servers. Surprisingly, they actually were in AGREEMENT that it wasn't damaging their sales at all...

...and according to market research, record sales have remained steady - even throughout this minor recession.

As for the whole theft issue, I for one could not be bothered to download entire albums on my paultry 56k modem, which would probably take 2 weeks anyway. I would, however, rather go out and buy an album after hearing a track that I'd downloaded as a "taster" though, instead of being stuck with an album filled with bizarre songs that I'd hate. It just inspires me to listen to and purchase material from new or hard-to-find artists, which hardly get any airplay on crappy commercial radio stations, because they're not "mainstream" enough for the masses...

It also gives me a genuine and welcome alternative to listening to manufactured "Boy Bands".

Bring it on - I say.

Sorry Tim (Democracy says: "You lose")

MacKenzie999

Feb 19, 2002, 05:05 PM

The RIAA is coming! The RIAA is coming!

Here's a different slant on the whole stealing music issue:

It appears that most people would like to see the system of music distribution change / evolve / whatever into something both more user friendly and economically fair. Changing the system is probably not the motive behind most file-sharing, but the end result should be that the music industry will be forced to reevaluate its practices (and hopefully any change will be for the better rather than the worse).

The guys who dumped tea into Boston Harbor were also breaking the law, and [history of US Revolution snipped] were able to effect positive change [positive that is, unless you were a Native American but that is a whole 'nother thread].

Therefore, yes, it is stealing, but because it is from a corrupt system it is entirely likely that this "bad" behaviour will have a positive result.

The argument about megabands supporting the less successful bands is bs. Many more people would be buying those other bands music if they were not so expensive. I have no idea what the realistic economics of the situation are, but if I'm curious about Band X, I am far more likely to risk $8-$9 on it instead of $15.

I use p2p for music, and I know it's technically wrong. I spend a lot of money on cd's, about as much as I can afford to. If I nap some additional stuff no one is really losing out, as it does not represent a lost sale. In fact if I like what I've napped enough I often buy more stuff from same band.

Bring on the revolution!

PyroTurtle

Feb 19, 2002, 05:18 PM

what about making a tape for a friend?
or for yourself? or making a CD for your car and using the original at home? or making MP3's for your MP3 player?
technichaly all of those are illegal.
so, i don't think these post are really worth it anymore..the fact is it happens and will always happen. bootleging is something that has always, and will always happen. and it's up to the person whether or not it's moraly right.

Gelfin

Feb 19, 2002, 05:41 PM

I'm the last person you'd hear advocating stealing things you don't want to buy. I'm a big pro-capitalism guy myself. But to play devil's advocate, here's an argument by analogy you might find somewhat persuasive:

It is always illegal to revolt against your government. If you want to live in a country, you have a legal obligation to abide by the laws set up by the government of that country. If your government is unjust, your hypothetical legal option would be to leave the country. But this option may not be possible. And an unjust government, knowing it is unjust, will further tighten restrictions on the people, in the misguided belief that they can stifle any dissent.

When people look at the Napster incident a hundred years from now, they'll note how the music industry became a lumbering, oppressive behemoth, charged customers prices two orders of magnitude higher than the cost of production, and tried to manipulate an untenable combination of law and technology to maintain an empire rendered largely obsolete by the advent of global digital networking. Under these circumstances, a Napster-like scenario was inevitable. Eliminating the industry and their price-gouging from the music-acquisition process became obscenely easy. The music industry took a number of steps to compensate for this phenomenon, all of them self-destructive. Notably, they tried to invent even more restrictive technology with the insanely uninformed goal of making it impossible for users to duplicate a stream of bits, lobbied for new laws which caused more problems than they solved, raised prices further to cover their expenses in implementing these new strategies, and stepped up their policy of trying to engineer talent rather than go looking for it, in the hopes of cutting losses from non-hits. The result was an industry which charged more and more money for blander and blander music, distributed in ways that made it harder and harder for legitimate consumers to enjoy it, thus exacerbating all the conditions which led to the Napster situation to begin with.

The history lesson will continue in one of two ways: Either you will read about how it just wasn't possible for the music industry to hold back the tide with a sword, so to speak, and how the digital music phenomenon led to a more streamlined (but still profitable) music industry wherein labels are clients of artists and not vice-versa. Or you'll authorize the publisher of your history text to deduct ten dollars from your bank account so that you will be permitted to read the next section, telling you how a combination of innovative technology and vigorous prosecution of their customers allowed the music industry to triumph over the vicious thieves and protect their intellectual property rights forever and ever.

Timothy

Feb 19, 2002, 05:41 PM

Trying to compare stealing music and software to a revolution akin to the Boston Tea Party or Robin Hood is ridiculous.

Again, I also support a change in the model of label/artist. I make a living doing so. But, don't kid yourself that you are pursuing some noble cause by stealing music and software. There are legit and noble ways to support independent art, and theft is not one of them.

With regards to the Free Software article...kumbaya. His arguments were almost laughable, except that many of you seem to take him seriously. Here you all are, wetting your pants to get Photoshop for X as soon as you can, and then you are going to try to convince me that you'd wait for some guy to write it for you for free? Ain't gonna happen. There are freeware and shareware programs on the market; feel free to rely on those.

You guys are in denial. Theft is theft, no matter how pretty you try to paint it.

arn

Feb 19, 2002, 05:52 PM

Originally posted by PyroTurtle
what about making a tape for a friend?
or for yourself? or making a CD for your car and using the original at home? or making MP3's for your MP3 player?
technichaly all of those are illegal.

Actually, with the exception of making a tape for a friend, the rest is legal.

arn

AmbitiousLemon

Feb 19, 2002, 07:06 PM

Timothy i hardly ever resort to name calling but im sorry your statements are so screwed up. you are clearly some right wing facist moron or one of the masses you has blindly accepted what the right wing facists morons want you to believe. i like how all your arguments come down to "its stealing" its fun to just label something witha bad word and say the thing you labeled is therefore bad but frankly these sort of tactics only fool the most weak minded of society (which unfortunately is the majority of the public).

your statements about free software are so out of touch with reality i want to just shake you. there have been so many studies performed on free and open software development, that it is as ridiculous to claim that the sun revolves around the earth as it is to claim that private software development is better.

do you even know who wrote that article? try educating yourself before you start attacking other people's morals. quick to point fingers and make acusations but slow to learn. maybe i just feel this way because im a scientist, but im sorry your acusations try reak of a witch hunt.

for those of you who have been agreeing with tim. im not attacking you. you have all been making good points and educated statements, but this timothy guy is really bothering me (ok so it might have something to do with 42 hours without sleep but it doesnt make him any less ignorant and wrong)

i dont even want to argue the facts with someone like you. i might as well argue evolution to a creationist. some people are just too brainwashed or have too many alterior motives to be reached by even the most overwhelming evidence. i might as well try to convince a jury full of idiots that oj simpson is guilty. too many people with too much money and too silver lips trying to prevent me from showing these people just how guilty he is, and no amount of evidence will change that.

MacAztec

Feb 19, 2002, 07:13 PM

Who cares if its legal or not. At least we are going to have it. Be happy for what you got...

Timothy

Feb 19, 2002, 07:53 PM

I assure you that I am not "right-wing" though I may be a whacko... :D

That said...I'd like you to clarify your point. Do you think that my taking software off of a P2P network is not stealing? Even if I think software, in the future, should be free, are you suggesting that I should then treat current software that way?

Please clarify your position.

Unregistered

Feb 19, 2002, 08:23 PM

Timothy: "Trying to compare stealing music and software to a revolution akin to the Boston Tea Party or Robin Hood is ridiculous.
[snip] don't kid yourself that you are pursuing some noble cause by stealing music"

You should learn to read more carefully before casting ridicule, Timothy. I'm not comparing the act of stealing with revolution, I'm comparing the results. Indulge me in some self-flattery as I quote my post:

"Changing the system is probably not the motive behind most file-sharing, but the end result should be that the music industry will be forced to reevaluate its practices. "

I'm looking forward to the music industry results of people's use of p2p, but I really don't care about their motives as I am not a member of the Morality Patrol (can you hear me way, way up there on that horse, Timothy?).

"Theft is theft, no matter how pretty you try to paint it"? Theft may always be theft, but it may not always be wrong. I sure would like to live in your clear-cut, black and white world where there are no grey areas to navigate. On second thought I take that back, I would hate to live in such a world.

[ bracing myself for the withering rejoinder I so surely deserve ]

MacKenzie999

Feb 19, 2002, 08:27 PM

I forgot to log in, so that last post was from me, Mackenzie999. Didn't want to look like I was hiding behind an anonymous post.

hinkhous

Feb 19, 2002, 08:35 PM

Timothy--

maybe you could clarify for me:

1. Would you consider me to be stealing music if I already owned a copy of the song or songs that I was downloading?? If yes, what if I no longer had the record/CD/tape, but did indeed pay for it. In essence, do you think that I should have to pay for the same thing twice??

Also:

2. Is it stealing if you record music off of the radio for your own personal use at a later time? This is no different from VCR's or TiVo when speaking of video. So I would think your answer to this question would be that it is indeed not stealing.

3. If radio is free (which it is), and assuming that recording off of the radio is allowable, can I have a friend of mine record a song for me from the radio from a station that I can't listen to?

4. If I can record a song off of the radio, why can't I have that friend record the song off of a CD? Encoding an mp3 loses a considerable amount of sound quality on a high fidelity stereo, so I certainly would not be using this song for anything other than portable music. Someone has already paid for it, so is it stealing??

There are a lot of questions that you can ask similar to these that basically all boil down to one question.

Why will the music industry give away music in one format and ask you to pay for it in another?

The two ideas are contradictory and I would hate to be an industry insider right now. I never buy CD's. I listen to the radio almost exclusively, yet when I download mp3's from a P2P, I am one of those statistics quoted by the industry. I am lost revenue to them because if I didn't download an illegal copy I would buy the CD. That simply is not correct. It is estimated that the industry loses billions of dollars each year. And I am losing billions of dollars of lottery winnings on the tickets that I don't buy.

I think that accusing people of stealing music from these P2P networks is pretty brave. This is music that is constantly GIVEN AWAY FREE at one time or another. How do you know that all of the mp3's on the web aren't encoded from free promo disks given away or recorded directly from free radio? Of course we know that is not the case, but how can anyone think that they are naive enough to stop the spread of information, © or not.

Timothy

Feb 19, 2002, 08:38 PM

Ok MacKenzie...

Your entire point (in your previous post) seemed to rest upon the idea that the music industry is "corrupt." While I, too, don't like the industry, I am not sure that I would call it corrupt. So, I'll ask you, what is it that you consider "corrupt" about the current industry?

Also...is it your assertion that I should beallowed to take any software application that I choose without having to pay for it?

Please clarify your position so that I can see where exactly we differ.

MacKenzie999

Feb 19, 2002, 09:04 PM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Timothy
[B]Ok MacKenzie...

Tim: "Your entire point (in your previous post) seemed to rest upon the idea that the music industry is "corrupt." While I, too, don't like the industry, I am not sure that I would call it corrupt. So, I'll ask you, what is it that you consider "corrupt" about the current industry?"

Wow, that's the last question I expected. Ok, I'll bite. An industry that typically marks up cds in an extremely disproportionate way (I honestly don't know the exact figure but everything I've read indicates this), thereby all but guaranteeing that only the most heavily marketed artists will sell profitably, thereby all but guaranteeing that new or emerging artists have little choice but to be taken advantage of by bad deals (sure they can always sell a few cdr's busking on the subway or be one of ten million anonymous free mp3 fish in the web. Those are REAL attractive options for supporting yourself with your art). By structuring the industry the way they have, they make it so difficult for new voices to be heard. For every Radiohead that makes it through I bet there are a great many equally talented (and a great many more less so) who will never be heard. If cds were priced fairly more people would buy them; I'd like to factor the WAY they market into this but don't have the energy to discuss Brittany's, um, wits. Perhaps "corrupt" may not be the most semantically correct word to describe the sorry state that the music industry has created, but it's close enough to suit me.

So the net is causing the record labels to reevaluate the way they do business. Now all we need is some visionary geek to figure a way to bring down Ticket Master and there will be much rejoicing! (but then the party gets ruined when Clear Channel shows up).

MacKenzie999

Feb 19, 2002, 09:14 PM

Tim: "Also...is it your assertion that I should beallowed to take any software application that I choose without having to pay for it?"

Woops, missed this point first time around. It was never my intention to address software (other than mp3) but once again I'll bite.

This one is a bit trickier because of the chicken-and-the-egg phenomonon. Sure, $650 seems like an awful lot to pay for Photoshop, but I've read that only 10% of all software in use is legitemately licensed; this drives up the prices that honest folk must shell out. I'd be much happier if everyone paid there way and Photoshop was more wallet-friendly. Fortunately for me I am a design professional and PS is at least tax-deductable.

Not much of an argument there, and this probably contradicts my thoughts on the music biz, but as I said I am not a black & white guy. Kinda pasty though.

Timothy

Feb 19, 2002, 09:54 PM

Hey MacKenzie...thanks for your answers. I asked because I think the answer to these questions are fundamental to the debate over peer-to-peer in general.

An industry that typically marks up cds in an extremely disproportionate way (I honestly don't know the exact figure but everything I've read indicates this)...

A major label, on average, spends about $750k recording and producing an album for one of their bands. The label nets approximately $4 of each album sold, meaning that just for the label to break even, the band has to sell 187,500 albums at full retail cost. Now, factor in that somewhere less than 10% of all bands sell anywhere near that many CD's (and even fewer sell significantly more than that), and you begin to see where the economics of the situation come into play. The labels lose money on most bands, and contrary to one post earlier in this thread, the risk is entirely upon the shoulders of the label; the bands are not responsible for the money that is put into them by the label, except that some of the costs are recoupable out of sales.

You seemed to imply that the cost of CDs produced by the majors somehow impacts the cost of the CDs by the independent artists. Truth be told, the independent market needs to charge *more* per CD, not less. A *great* and successful independent artist (1 in 1000?) will sell somehwere around 10,000 to 20,000 CD's. They will of course spend less on production, but it can easily still cost $20-50,000 for a well-produced product. So, say you have a 5-piece band; assuming they sell 20,000 CDs over three years, after expenses, they have still only netted $15K per member year each. If they charge less than a basic $15 per disc, they're dead. No one can make a living on that. And, that does not account for marketing and equipment expenses.

BTW...I've done controlled studies with independent musicians. We've lowered the price of their CDs to less than $10 to see if they sold more at the lower price than at the higher price. The result? Price did not influence sales (within reason, of course). They sell just as many at $15 as they do at $9. Why? Because in reality, if you like the music, and want to buy it, $15 isn't out of reach.

By structuring the industry the way they have, they make it so difficult for new voices to be heard. For every Radiohead that makes it through I bet there are a great many equally talented (and a great many more less so) who will never be heard.

I agree that there are a lot of great bands out there that never get heard. I place the blame for this not on the industry, but on the buying public who likes to have their entertainment spoon-fed to them. I am not sure how it is the fault of the "industry" if you don't go out to the local clubs, listen to new bands, and buy their music. Where ever you live, I'd be willing to bet that there is a local band playing tonight and trying to get your attention. The major labels are not stopping you from getting out there and buying music from the independent market.

If cds were priced fairly more people would buy them; I'd like to factor the WAY they market into this but don't have the energy to discuss Brittany's, um, wits. Perhaps "corrupt" may not be the most semantically correct word to describe the sorry state that the music industry has created, but it's close enough to suit me.

I agree with your assessment of the market, with a few notable exceptions. This is why I choose to work primarily with independent artists.

PyroTurtle

Feb 19, 2002, 11:25 PM

actually acourding to the supreme court making any copy of a copyrighted material for anything other than an educational purpose is illegal. just one of those little loophole that no one pays attention to.
kinda like the law that says only chicken feathers may be released from a car on a state and or federal highway...my point only that people comit theft and crime and don't even know it ;)
the joy of my best friend being a constitutional lawyer major at harvard...loopholes are endless

3rdpath

Feb 19, 2002, 11:33 PM

wow, i've never seen so many lame arguments to justify theft. if you're taking something and not paying for it--you're a thief--PERIOD.

are the record labels unfair to most artists? absolutely. what the heck does that have to do with you? if you think you're going to change them or teach them a lesson you woefully underestimate the depths of their pockets.

is it a black and white issue? sure, because the music you're stealing is a luxury. you're not stealing food for your starving kids.

if you bought a cd and you lost it then go buy another. what if it were a pair of sunglasses? surfboard wax? geeze, some of you guys have some MAJOR character flaws.

i find it interesting how much flaming occurs on this sight about M$'s unethical behavior but when the opportunity presents itself-some of you guys are just little Bills.

and BTW, yes i've been signed to both major and indy labels-and been screwed by both. so what? my choice.

:cool:

LethalWolfe

Feb 20, 2002, 12:28 AM

First off, I'd like to say that it's cool that this has stayed flame free. I've seen some good "point/counter point" opinions and examples.
And here's the 2 cents I feel like sharing now:
If you are an artist and you want (or don't care) your music to be shared freely then fine. That's very cool of you. But if you *don't* want yer music shared freely you should have a way to stop it from happening. I mean, that's what the whole thing between Metallica and Napster was. 'Tallica didn't want *their property* to be distrubited for free, but Napster refused to cooperate so 'Tallica called in the big guns and off to court they all went.

I think P2P (and the digital medium in general) is great, especially for low-budget and indie types 'cause it allows you to get a lot of bang for the buck, but I don't think people should be forced into letting their product or property be given away for free. I mean, people ragged on 'Tallica 6 ways from Sunday, but all Metallica wanted was for Napster to stop giving away Metallica's property, WTF is wrong w/that?

For me P2P has been a great "try before I buy" solution. If someone says, "Hey check out this band" I'll grab some of their songs on-line and see if I like them. If I do then I go buy the CD, if I don't then I trash the files 'cause I think they suck. :)

Lethal

Smasher

Feb 20, 2002, 01:35 AM

Originally posted by 3rdpath
if you bought a cd and you lost it then go buy another. what if it were a pair of sunglasses? surfboard wax? geeze, some of you guys have some MAJOR character flaws.
:cool:

(I risk getting burned by flamethrowers by speaking up, but i've got my suit on.)

The difference here is that while you're paying for the sunglasses or surfboard wax themselves, you're not with the CD. With the CD, you're paying for the music. The CD is merely the medium the music is held on (although admittedly a bit of the price comes from the CD itself). However, if you wanted blank CD's, they're a lot cheaper than 15 bucks a piece.

If one lost a pair of sunglasses or some surfboard wax (lost as opposed to used/worn out), I personally feel it would be perfectly acceptable to get another copy of the same pair, IF it could be done without negative impact to anybody. Unfortunately, in the sunglasses analogy every pair has to be made, and each pair costs the company money to make. Therefore, the only model that would work in the real world (where people could also claim their glasses were lost even if they really weren't) is one where the customer must pay for each pair/bottle. Otherwise, companies might go out of business providing 'free refills'.

With the CD, however, the situation changes. If one loses the CD, he or she can find the music online. The difference in this scenario is that it doesn't cost the company (record) any money to make the copy (as the music can be duplicated as many times as one wants, with the only costs being the electricity one uses while one makes the copy, and the harddrive used to hold it, which one presumably already has), and thus has no direct negative impact on them. The person has already paid for the music, and therefore is not 'pirating' or 'stealing' the music. Of course, if the person then starts distributing the music personally, and especially if he or she gives it to people who would otherwise buy the CD, the company is negatively impacted again. That area, however, I'll leave to everyone else.

capcom1701

Feb 20, 2002, 01:46 AM

Originally posted by Timothy

If you don't like the music industry, the real answer is to support independent music by BUYING music directly from artists who have chosen not to sign deals with the major labels.

Or we could all just steal music online and then send a few bucks to the artist. A person could argue that some civil disobedience is a good thing. If the artists are being treated unfairly or being exploited by the labels why not break the law? Borrowing from the previous post that used slavery as a metaphor for the way artists are treated by labels, why not steal? Why propagate a system that is unjust? If a slave escaped from the south during the period of slavery, would you send them back? Just because that's what the system said you ought to do? Granted, the ethical weight of the slavery metaphor is a bit heavier than that of the music industry. It's all going to change, whether the labels like it or not, because of advances in digital media technology. In the very near future (even now) artists will be able to record at a high level of quality with inexpensive equipment. As internet delivery becomes better, the major record labels (and movie studios) are going to disappear or drastically change form. Anyhow, please accept this as some vocal musing and don't be to quick to judge anyone you disagree with. That never leads to anything positive. :D
C.

Gelfin

Feb 20, 2002, 03:37 AM

Originally posted by Smasher
The difference here is that while you're paying for the sunglasses or surfboard wax themselves, you're not with the CD. With the CD, you're paying for the music. The CD is merely the medium the music is held on (although admittedly a bit of the price comes from the CD itself).

Excellent point. That's the whole thing. A CD costs the publisher somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty cents to press in quantity. Maybe less by now. Think about it -- if they were any more expensive than that AOL would have gone out of business long ago. The big justification for the high cost of CDs is that what you're paying for is a license to listen to the music. And yet, if somehow the medium becomes damaged, your only option is to pay again for music you've already purchased a license for once.

In fact one of the reasons the cost of CDs is so high is that CDs don't wear out as fast as any previous distribution medium. The extra price, for a disc that costs them less to produce than a cassette tape, is that they're losing a lot of revenue compared to the good old days when people had to replace their favorite albums every year or two.

In one sense, Timothy's right on the money. Taking the music without paying for it is illegal, and ninety-nine percent of the people who talk about how the labels are corrupt, abuse the artists, etc, could not care less that the labels do those things except insofar as it gives them something to say when people point out to them that stealing music is wrong. In other words, most of you would never think to protest the injustice of the music industry if you weren't getting free music out of the deal.

At the same time, once you get away from the individual ethics of the situation (which I think I can do fairly since my Napster usage didn't tend towards the illegal), the situation is not as black-and-white as that. Even though the people who steal the music are not justified in doing so, the hubris and greed of the labels has played no small part in creating the situation they now find themselves in. The labels have managed to successfully circumvent all of the usual controls in a free-market industry. By building up enormous complexity, they have actually succeeded in creating legal price fixing in their industry. When theft of a product is as ubiquitous as Napster usage was, then there is something wrong with the economics of the situation. In this case, part of what's wrong is that it is now possible to distribute music far, far cheaper than the established process. In fact, the music literally distributes itself. For that matter, it's hard to stop it. The very existence of this option makes the traditional distribution mechanisms far less valuable to the consumer. In effect, the labels now force consumers to pay an outrageous premium for an outdated and inefficient publishing and distribution mechanism which consumers demonstrably neither want or need.

What's happened here is that the complexity which allowed the labels to fix and maintain enormous profits at the same time made the industry too complex to be able to adapt to changes in the market environment. So when something truly revolutionary comes along (and personal worldwide distribution of content certainly qualifies), their only choice is to do their very best to crush it and maintain the status quo. Essentially, they're engaging in anticompetitive business practices, not against a specific competitor, but against the proverbial idea whose time has come. I'm pretty sure it's ultimately a losing battle for the labels, but it's going to be a hell of a mess for a while as they try to maintain their position.

emagdnimy

Feb 20, 2002, 06:39 AM

in response to some of the points lethal made about Metallica crying about their music being taken.

When an "artist" completes a work and shares it with the world, he/she is openly giving it to everyone. they are saying, "hey, look what i did.... i made some cool music." the problem is that too many people try to create just for the money. this seems to be what the definition of an artist is. if your art sucks then either, no one else understands it or you are really bad. and if you think that it is good art, then you will continue to make it despite the odds because thats who you are...an artist. where do aritsts get the fantasy that art should make them rich? the reward is in the art itself, not in how much it will be sold for. this concept seems to be absent in today's music industry. musicians should leave the money making to the business people because that is what they do. just as long as the musicians have enough money to keep making music, then they shouldn't be complaining. it seems though that this is exactly the problem, that independent artists don't have the resources to be a musician. so how is this problem fixed? well, not everyone can be a superstar.....independent artists must keep on keepin on if you know what i mean and then maybe someday, people will catch on to their music. but then again maybe your art will never catch on and you'll have to suffer from the same neglect that many artists have suffered throughout history. it seems that throughout history some of the best art was created in situations of angiush and poverty.....or some situation to create art about. i think their are too many ordinary people that haven't experienced enough pain to say anything truly moving with their art. me included. this is a whole different topic.

there is some similarity to Amb. Lemon's article. the author seemed to be in support of sharing discoveries and being able to improve on them. this can be applied to music and computer science. if you developed something and decided to share it then share it. charging would be like newton saying, "okay, everytime you integrate that i want you to give me 10 bucks. and i'm not going to show you how i did it, i'll just give you the equation and tell you how to use it. and if you don't pay up then i'll have you put in the gulletin." if that had been the case then calculus might not have grown into what it is today. of course people and companies still need to make money in order to produce these products for us, otherwise you would have the time to write Photoshop 7? but $640! damn...i'll be in line to get the latest surfers serials. so i don't know what side that puts me on.

forgive me if this post is not coherent..its kinda late. and feel free to tell me how it is.

punjab

emagdnimy

erova

Feb 20, 2002, 10:18 AM

so say that my moral code is shot...

i don't care if it's stealing when i download a song, and sometimes i don't use my turn signal, and sometimes i look at my neigbor's wife and say, damn, she' hot.

big deal. i think if i walked into the dc police department at lunch and gave them my powerbook because i have a copy of the photoshop beta i probably wouldn't end up on COPS with my face blurred and BadBoys playing in the background.

3rdpath

Feb 20, 2002, 11:02 AM

by all means, only do the right thing only if you'll get prosecuted.:eek:

mischief

Feb 20, 2002, 11:11 AM

Does anyone remember Guetenberg? No, it's not a WWII death camp or a treaty, it's the name of the guy who invented the printing press in 1450. His process was siezed upon by Martin Luthor and his gang of Protestants who believed that the Bible should be available to the common man. The Catholic Church, which had created an Empire, slaughtered entire Nations (The Cathars) and suppressed literacy predictably freaked out. The prospect of the Bible being available to everyone, particularly in the common languages threatened the basis of Catholic Empirial power. How could they extort and manipulate all of Europe if people could commune and understand independantly?

When a behemoth and monopolist industry cries fowl I find it more than a bit satisfying that no one cares. Artists never had the means to "get rich quick" until the recording industry accidentally created the rock stars of the 50's. After the mid 60s the Labels figured out that Advertising, Spin and market research could allow them to pick and choose what sold, what was paid for it and who provided the content.

Over the last 30 years we've seen the Labels evolve from a genuine effort to promote new Acts to a bloated and self-serving Enron/Standard Oil/Mideival-Catholic institution. I feel that these companies need a kick in the nuts and fully deserve it. I feel that the loss of proffits argument is crap. I feel that this is an un-precidented new kind of boycott.

If they want to sell me a liscence, fine. Sell me a Liscence that gives me access and priveleges just like software vendors do. I want to pay 20.00 for Metallica ONCE and have access, not a hunk of highly scratchable plastic with no actual rites attatched. This system sux as much as the IRS.**** em, if they can't adapt they'll die. Sorry Brittany, I guess you'll just have to resort to stripping.:rolleyes:

Timothy

Feb 20, 2002, 11:25 AM

OK...for those of you who have now convinced yourselves that in reality you are not stealing music, but are instead revolting against tyrrany, explain this to me...

In your new utopia, where no one pays for music, how will the independent artist survive?

You've all argued that what your trying to do is to support the artist...but I just don't get it. If you establish the pattern that all music should be free...who wins?

I'll await your explanation.

blackpeter

Feb 20, 2002, 11:35 AM

Tim,
You're making some good points.

Can produce any info to show me that swapping is hurting album sales? I believe in Napster's first year of operations, album sales were up.

erova

Feb 20, 2002, 11:37 AM

the artist will survive by being a bartender at night (either at a chain restaurant or an independent bar) until his shows catch on around the local scene, and then once he starts playing at bigger venues, i will procede to download his shows recorded live on morpheus, listen to it, and go to bed without losing sleep. if he plays good stuff, i'll buy the whole disc (to be determined if i want to buy it at barnes and noble or a small record shop) because morpheus is a pain to download every track on his album.

then i'll go see him live, pay the cover, and drink my face off, deciding at the time whether or not i want to support my local microbrewery, or if 2 dollar miller lites are better.

the next day i will probably eat my sandwich, throw away the crust, and not think of starving ethiopians when i take out my trash.

AmbitiousLemon

Feb 20, 2002, 11:42 AM

emagdnimy: :) good to hear someone read that article. I thing the long post scared most people off. Clearly Tim didnt read since he clearly doesnt understand. Why is "Stealing" an improper term to pin on the sharing of digital mediums? Well for the very reasons outlined in that article and reiterated by so many on this board. Digital media can be reproduced basically for free and can therefore be given form one person to another without a cost to either individual and without either individual being deprived of the item. ie if i have a book and i give it to my friend i dont have a book. but with digital media if i have a mp3 and i give it to my friend i still have the mp3. There is really no comparison to material objects that makes sense. Yes, under the law sharing digital media is "stealing." but frankly i have always been more concerned about what is right and moral than what the governement wants me to believe is right and moral. i suggest all of you do the same.

I have never really bought in to the whole im stealing music because the music industry is corrupt thing myself. i understand and can appreciate such an argument on a non violent protest level but i dont subscribe to the agrument myself. And Tim no matter how much you want to make us believe you know what you are talking about when you quote a bunch of numbers those of us who actually know, know that you are lying. Dont try it your not very good at it. I buy independent and major labels alike and i can tell you the indy bands are almost always cheaper. there are many many bands that sell their cds for less than $10 and do just fine. There are even a few well known bands who do this. Check out your local music store and notice the prices of most of the punk and indyrock bands.

The best metaphore that works is that digital media is most like thoughts, ideas, discoveries. These things are freely distributed in our society. Just take a look at the way scientists publish research that often costs many thousands of dollars and allows the masses to freely consume this information. Why do we do this because the free distribution of knowledge helps us develope more great ideas and inventions. Yes there are copy right laws on inventions and such but these merely prevent people from using another person's invention to make money. The information itself is free. Givernment and law has typically been designed to benefit society. Thats why sharing knowledge is free, this benefits society.

If we look at the example of free software and open source codes and such our metaphor begins to show clear application to real life. Many people assume erroneously that private development of software provides better software and that open source code creates cheap applications that are made by a bunch of silly hackers. As i said this is an erroneous conclusion although not entirely intuitive the oposite is actually true. Many independant research by universities has been published in peer reviewed journals regarding the advantages of open source development and the benefits of free software for society. This is why many of us are so excited about Mac OS embracing unix. As I said this is not exactly the most intuitive conclusion one would reach but when one reviews the glaring flaws in private development (think windows xp) of software versus the many rock solid applications that are freely developed and distributed.

Someone asked how we feel about "pirating" software that was not intended to be free. Honestly I have a sort of funny line I draw. I freely share whatever I own or have "acquired" with any who request it and do not ask questions about how they will use it. I believe it is an individual thing to decide what is moral and i will not dictate my own morals to someone else when offering them data. However I will explain my own feelings on this to all of you. If i use any application to make money I will pay for it, no questions asked. Photoshop is a good example. Many many people use photoshop at work and make their living because of what adobe has provided them. these people should be payying the $600+ dollars for this application. However the 15 year old kid who just wants to use photoshop to make some neat pictures or design a startup screen for his computer should not be expected to shell out hundreds of dollars for what is a free luxury. i say free luxury because the application he is using can be reproduced at no cost and luxury because this is an application that he both does not need and will never pay for. If he could not get it for free he would not buy it and therefore this does not represent lost income to the developers of the application just a gain to society who can share in this young lad's creations. Games of course are a touchy issue here. who uses games to make money? I download and preview games all the time typically the game is deleted and never used after the first 3 days of my downloading it. why? because i didnt like the game. this is simply a preview system that actually encourages people to purchase more games since they can purchase with certainty. When i find a game i like (TheSims) i run out and buy it and play it for months. Generally with any game, application, utility or whatever i always ask myself if i could not get this for free would i purchase it. if the answer is yes i purchase it.

Perhaps the most laughable argument the music industry makes is the lost revenue argument. i think a few people have already addressed this quite well but im on a roll. when i download a john denver mp3 does it mean the denver estate or label is loosing money? no! why? because i would never purchase a john denver album (im a industrial kinda guy). why would i download muysic i wouldnt purchase. a lil extra variety is nice now and then. if anything the music industry saw extra profit due to the sharing of music files. how so? in two ways i can think of. the first being this preview feature. we can often download and preview music before it is even in stores. i know so many kids who have downloaded a song and been raving about how the instant it comes out they are buying it. and sure enough there they are standing in line cash in hand waiting for the store to open on the big day. The other way music labels see increased profits is because of increased market permetation. more people are being exposed to more music. its free advertising. how many computer nerd did you know in the 80s who were big music fans? think of all teh nerds you went to school with in before napster was brought to the mainstream. how many of them listened to music. now every good nerd has a harddrive or two full of music and an impressive cd collection to rival any dj. new customers plain and simple. but market permetation doesnt stop their in addition to finding new customers the music industry has also found customers who are being exposed to new music and buying it up. these people might have been rock fans who discover country music is to thier liking as well, or classic rock junkies who discover rap. suddenly the old customer base is buying more msuic as well.

that all sounds well and good but its just speculation right? well yes mostly, based on personal observations and a lot of simple common sense. but also think about record sales lately and just what has been popular lately. record sales are breaking old records like never before and bands that are appealing to youth are taking over (boy bands, britney, etc). these badns that are taking the world by storm are targeting the same age groups that most use p2p music transfers. the old fogees who dig more refined music and typically less familiar with computers are watching these trends with tears in their eyes since their bands arent doing so well. kinda odd that an industry that claims its loosing sales is selling more than it ever has and is selling the most to the very people who most use the p2p filesharing the music industry claims detracts form sales.

ive got a few more points about "the good of society" issues (i know its sounds corny but its well backed up and not nearyly as corny as it sounds) but im gonna be late for a meeting if i sit here any longer.

Timothy

Feb 20, 2002, 11:56 AM

tFaz...

I am not going to argue that swapping has had any significant impact, to date, on the Music industry. Currently, the swapping industry is miniscule compared to CD sales. Probably less than .1 percent in comparative volume.

However, this is due mainly to the idea that very few people, currently, are equipped to listen to digital music as their primary source of music. However, this scenario is changing rapidly, and the economics of the issue will begin to become much more apparent.

With the advent of great MP3 apps like iTunes, and the appearance of great MP3 players such as the iPod...it is becoming more realistic that MP3s or similar technologies will shortly become the primary source of music for the listener. I've converted my entire CD collection to MP3's, and now I rarely listen to a CD. Most of my music listening is via digital files. I even take my iPod with me in my car, and plug it in to the car stereo.

In this world, where the majority of music is delivered digitally, there is no distinction of how I have obtained my music. If I download a song for free, load it into iTunes and my iPod, there is absolutely no motivation for me to ever buy the song. So, while it may be argued that currently this practice does not impact the music industry, we are going to see changes very rapidly, and we are helping to set the stage.

I guarantee you that by establishing a system where no one pays for their music, you will negatively impact the independent artist much more than you will impact the record labels. Take for the example the browser market...microsoft has created a market where nobody is willing to pay for a web browser. Why do you think they are doing this? They know that they can last in this market much more easily than the small guy...they can "starve him out of the business" as it were. In the end, the only player left will be Microsoft. The same will hold true for the music industry. Even if you force a new business model, the monied interests will win. You are not helping the independent artist.

MacKenzie999

Feb 20, 2002, 12:36 PM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Timothy
[B]OK...for those of you who have now convinced yourselves that in reality you are not stealing music, but are instead revolting against tyrrany, explain this to me...

In your new utopia, where no one pays for music, how will the independent artist survive?

In my posts I never suggest music should be free. I just think dealing an economic blow to the record industry is one way to get their attention and hopefully revise their distribution practices (including cost; thanks for the info on all that Tim). I enjoy buying cds, I simply think the current system inhibits new artists.

That aside, I'd like you to clarify one of your positions. You essentially are saying it's never ok to steal. How do you feel about this scenario:
It is somewhere suggested to you that you would really like Band X. You are semi curious, but not enough to pay $15. You download a song or two, decide you do in fact like them, so you g out and make the purchase. Does that make you a thief or an informed consumer? Or something else perhaps?

3rdpath

Feb 20, 2002, 12:43 PM

do you guys really think you're hurting the major labels? let me assure you you're not. you're only hurting the artists-people like me who write songs, produce music, get bogus royalty statements, stay in crummy hotels and eat only at places that end with an apostrophy "s".

i don't need ( or want) your help fighting my battle. i'll negotiate a better deal, a higher cap, a better slice of publishing or i'll do it myself.

your stealing of our material doesn't help us-that's just a lame arguement to rationalize and justify.

sure you sleep well at night-its your life, lead it how you want. just say to yourself-" i'm a theif, i like being a theif, i'm really only helping myself ".

its ok, you're part of the big picture and you deserve to be here. the world needs it's ugliness to truly appreciate it's beauty.

peace to you.

mischief

Feb 20, 2002, 12:52 PM

I don't think I'd want to hear music from such a whiney git anyway. Either live the life of a Bard and LOVE it or shut up. If you choose the "starving Artist" bit, don't use it to get attention. I'm an Artist. My Wife is an Artist. However, we both want lives we couldn't afford as Artists so we have Grey-People jobs to get by. Stop Whining. It makes the rest of us look bad.

Timothy

Feb 20, 2002, 01:00 PM

It is somewhere suggested to you that you would really like Band X. You are semi curious, but not enough to pay $15. You download a song or two, decide you do in fact like them, so you g out and make the purchase. Does that make you a thief or an informed consumer? Or something else perhaps?

Thanks for the question, as it will allow me to clarify my position. With the bands that I work with, I encourage them to post free copies of their songs on their web site. I generally give the advice that they should rip the MP3 at a lower bit rate, so that the quality is comparable to an FM radio broadcast, and more easily downloaded; thereby allowing the person to sample the music well enough to determine whether or not they want to buy it.

So, to answer your question, it depends. I think the choice should rest with the owner of the copyright. If that owner absolutely does not want the music distributed for free, that is their call to make; I may argue with them that they are making the wrong decision, but it is their decision to make. But, this is very different than when a person rips an entire CD to MP3, at high-quality, and posts it to a P2P network sans the permission of the artist or label; this distinction makes all the difference.

Also, to fulfill what you are suggesting, technology has developed expiring digital files, which I think would also work. However, it is my impression that many people on this thread are seemingly arguing that they should never have to pay for digital content; that they somehow have a "right" to this stuff for free.

Here's the point...do I care about the occasional swapping of files? Sharing amongst friends just to expose someone to new music? No. But, when actual networks are set up with no permissions, with no limitations, with no compensation whatsoever going back to the artist or label, then I draw a line.

And, ultimately, this issue goes much further than music. AmbitiousLemon is arguing that those who do work primarily in a format that can be duplicated easily shouldn't be compensated for that work in the same way that a person who works with physical materials is compensated. I disagree with the distinction (and yes, I did read his entire article, I just completely disagree with the conclusion of the author).

3rdpath

Feb 20, 2002, 01:09 PM

wise career choice....

Timothy

Feb 20, 2002, 01:12 PM

Ambitious...

I did read your entire article; twice even.

I do agree with you that there are times and places where open source and free software are good ideas. If you want to write code, and post it for free, nothing I have said in this thread will stop you from doing so. But, the decision to do so should be yours, not mine. If you want to be an artist, and give your work away for free...Great! Go ahead and do it!

I also don't think the distinction you are making between work that is easily duplicated and work that is not should have any merit in our society. Some people work with physical products, and they are compensated for their work. Others work with abstract ideas, and they, too, should be compensated for their work insofar as they create something of value. That one medium is easier to duplicate than the other does not change the fact that both should have the right to compensation for their work.

But to argue that because you want the world to be that way, and you are willing to give your work away for free, and therefore, everyone else should as well, just doesn't follow. To argue for freedom of ideas is one thing; to then use that argument as an excuse to steal someone else's work is ridiculous.

3rdpath

Feb 20, 2002, 01:13 PM

your answers and explanations are rock solid. wish i had your patience.

mischief

Feb 20, 2002, 01:24 PM

Yes, it sux that Artists do not get appropriately or fairly compensated in either system. Yes, the industry IS (sorry Timbo) screwing everybody concerned at tremendous proffit. Yes, there needs to be a new system. Just realize: Whatever comes of this it won't be one way or the other and I don't think El Citrus or Timmy are trying to say that. 'Lemon's point is that SOFTWARE is better off open-sourced and freely distributed.Tim's point is that Artists need to get paid.

My point is that Programmers and Artists need to make it happen from THEIR end and move toward more realistic distribution methods. Existing Music Industry tactics of "encrypting" CDs or putting out expiring MP3's is Draconian, wrong, ineffective and only encourages P2P use. Existing Software is, well......clumsy and over-large for what it does, as if programmers get paid by the line.

mischief

Feb 20, 2002, 01:27 PM

Originally posted by 3rdpath
wise career choice....

Wise, but un-fulfilling. I'm strongly considering Entreprenuership. If that was a crack at the quality of artistry we turn out:Get bent poser. If the implication is that it's not Art if you don't live off it/sell it, I'm glad you're struggling.

Macpoops

Feb 20, 2002, 02:26 PM

anyone else find it funny that this started simply as a discussion of the coming release of a good program that offers P2P filesharing that alot of people enjoy for whatever reason. Then it turned into a heated debate over music and copyrights. Frankly, who cares about it. You can sit here and bitch about this and that but in the end it's not going to change anything. So stop wasting your time as well as mine. You waste you time writing it and i waste my time reading it.

mischief

Feb 20, 2002, 02:31 PM

Welcme to the Forums.

3rdpath

Feb 20, 2002, 02:40 PM

so much hostility and name calling. i make a post to make the point of a person making his living in the music biz ( and it is just MY opinion) and you go off like a roman candle. i'm still not sure what your point is. do you have one? or is this just your form of creative release? if so, then its a good thing it's free....if not, please make a point sometime or start a pointless thread and sit there by yourself. by the way, if you're going to become an entrepreneur then learn how to spell it.

Smasher

Feb 20, 2002, 02:41 PM

Originally posted by Macpoops
You waste you time writing it and i waste my time reading it.

Friendly question: Then why do you read it?

AmbitiousLemon

Feb 20, 2002, 02:48 PM

Mischief: good to hear another voice of reason here.

isnt it interesting how timothy claims to have read my posts so closely and yet has absolutely no response other than "i disagree cuz i want to be paid." i guess if you cant come up with a good counter argument you should just resort to talking around the main topic.

a lot of people here have pointed out the flaws in logica regarding the "stick it to the music industry" excuse used by many p2p proponents. again i never subscribed to this line of logic (although i can see some merit in it). ive never quite liked seeing protesting that involves benefit to the protester. for the protest to mean anything you cant be gaining anything from it (other than the eventual change you are asking for).

i think the main reason many people make the "stick it to the industry" argument is that they can feel deep down that there is nothing wrong with file sharing, they see a corrupt system and they put 2 and 2 together. people usually make decisions based on emotion and use logic later to justify their decision. your hearts are in the right place guys but your logic needs some redirecting.

people are generally "lawful." or more accurately people are generally "moral." despite what organized religion might try to tell you. these people who are "stealing files" are your typical criminals. there isnt rampant unlawfulness in the world at large. you dont walk down the street seeing looting going on in every store front. i dont think there is some sort of moral degredation that happens to someone when the log on to the internet. so why are generally moral people breaking the law? perhaps because there is something wrong with the law and that the activity this law prohibits isnt in fact moral or constructive for society.

i think perhaps the reason i grew so offended by Timothy's arguments (btw Tim im sorry for responding in an over the top hot headed manner) is that these arguments remind me very much of system's that exist (today and in the past) whose goal was to degrade the individual and rob the individual of certain inalienable rights. The Soviet Union, Christianity (or organized religion for those of you who prefer i put it that way), capitalism (lets not get side-tracked arguing this one but just to set the record straight the current global market isnt capitalist, there are socialist constraints that let thinks work--id like to see more, but thats another topic), etc. i am will extend Tim and his cohorts a courtesy and assume they are not operating in this fashion towards these goals, but are merely concerned about their own well being and (probably do to limitations of intelligience or personal biases inherent in their upbringing) have yet to see that they are fighting the wrong fight.

And what do i mean byy all this and what is meant by "fighting the wrong fight?" well mischief hit the nail on the head with this:
"My point is that Programmers and Artists need to make it happen from THEIR end and move toward more realistic distribution methods. Existing Music Industry tactics of "encrypting" CDs or putting out expiring MP3's is Draconian, wrong, ineffective and only encourages P2P use. Existing Software is, well......clumsy and over-large for what it does, as if programmers get paid by the line."

great point mischief so ill elaborate. artists deserve to be paid. those of us in favor of p2p file sharing (and other types of file exchange) are not saying artists should starve or have to get other jobs (although excepting the current reality that mischief has and 3rdpath hasnt is important if you choose to be an artist today is important). all that we are saying is the nature of digital media requires a different system, one in which the sharing of digital files is not only allowed but is legal and perhaps even encouraged. there has been a change in the product that artists produce. well the product is and will always be art (music, software, movies, etc) but the medium for distribution has changed. this greatly impacts the market structure that is required to bring the music from creator to consumer (i suppose the term consumer isnt the best isnt nothing is actually consumed). the music industry is refusing to accept the fundamental change in their market, and are subsequently (through a large investment of capital funding legislation) are in fact hurting society and hurting themselves. a switch from a material based distribution to a digital based distribution market is necessary. This is not a utopian, theoretical, or fantasy sitaution, but one that others have undertaken in the past. Markets and that include the free distribution of products that dont require capital or time to repoduce as well as funding or payment for the intial creation of the product have been in existance for many thousands of years. I am part of one such market myself. The market of ideas. As an academic researcher (or scientist if you prefer) one creates original ideas (much the same way an artist creates original pieces of art) has that creation funded (through a variety of means) and has ones own salary provided while still delivering a product to the masses that is freely shared and distributed. The academic system is responsible for some of the greatest achievments of man and it is one in which those who choose to pursue a career in it are well paid and funded for their efforts while at the same time delivering a free product. So when i say that artists such as Timothey are "fighting the wrong fight" what i am saying is that instead of fighting to prevent the sharing of digital media they should be fighting to create a system that makes sense for both the consumer and the artist. One that, like the academic system, funds the development of new material and rewards the creater as well as provides a free product.

in the meantime as a consumer i will continue doing what is right (when did the word sharing become such a bad word? i dont think i like living in a world where sharing is considered immoral) and those of you who are on the flip side should try working with the masses and fight the good fight.

mischief

Feb 20, 2002, 02:51 PM

Sorry to go off like that, I've just met WAY too many posers here in Santa Cruz who think that Art should be LIVED not simply expressed and enjoyed. Such people piss me off.Didn't mean to get all pissy, I guess I'm kinda jealous of your bravery. Most of the afore mentioned posers live off trust funds and call themselves Artists cuz they own an axe and sit around stoned all day.

Plus I'm kinda hopped up on the silly-ness of this thread: Yes, P2P encourages illegal behavior. It's cool we have 1 more formerly PC P2P. Yes, Artists have and will always get screwed by their patrons if it's their major source of income. Yes, there needs to be a change in the distribution and reconciliation of Digital content. Yes, open-source has major advantages.

AmbitiousLemon

Feb 20, 2002, 03:09 PM

I had a bit of an idea. I will share (if thats ok). I have had that "software should be free" article on my website since day one. im quite fond of it. i have on a number of occasions tried to solicit responses to the article from, friends, coworkers, viewers. I have encouraged a response from both sides and most people although enthusiastic at first quickly decide not to submit anything. I think its a little daunting to most people trying to respond to an article like that.

I would like to invite all of you to submit some articles to my website (i will post everything i get as long as they are grammatically sound). But more specifically i would like to invite Timothy and Mischief to submit articles. Mischief hasnt really responded at large on the topic but he seems to have quite a bit to bring to the table. And although I dont personally feel Timothy has addresses most of my points i do feel he has addressed a number of issues and will likely be able to respond to my points give proper encouragement. I feel both of you could bring quite an interesting perspective to an issue that I feel is quite critical to modern economics. let me know what you guys think, i hope you will be agreeable.

mischief

Feb 20, 2002, 03:14 PM

It'd be scorched earth the likes of which the west has never seen.

PyroTurtle

Feb 20, 2002, 04:58 PM

just to add a few more cents....
they did figure out that it wasn't napster that "hurt" sales, but CD-Burners...now 5 people could pay for 1 CD...which was actually an advertising slogan from Phillips in Japan...just thought i'd throw that out there...

mischief

Feb 20, 2002, 05:07 PM

Originally posted by PyroTurtle
just to add a few more cents....
they did figure out that it wasn't napster that "hurt" sales, but CD-Burners...now 5 people could pay for 1 CD...which was actually an advertising slogan from Phillips in Japan...just thought i'd throw that out there...

[SIZE=4][COLOR=red]BINGO!:D

3rdpath

Feb 20, 2002, 05:34 PM

then i guess everything should just be free.

after this post i'm on my way to the apple store to take a new g4-it will be free because i just don't like their channel of distribution. and i'll be driving a new diablo that the salesman gave me after i complained that everything should be shared freely-who cares about the time and labor and creativity contained in the design. ya see, we're all just patrons of some magical benevolent ruler who pays our way while we create all this great free stuff.

so many great theories-so few people to truly live them.

mischief

Feb 20, 2002, 05:42 PM

No one is proposing a true communist/anarchist system here. As nice as that would be there is too much entrenched greed to allow it to happen. The point being made is that the recording industry needs to keep P2P in mind and NOT screw the consumer with knee-jerk technologies.

MrMacMan

Feb 20, 2002, 08:28 PM

I know the program is great, and I don't really care if I'm breaking any laws, so when the heck is it coming to the mac? ;)
This is thw best program for the Pc, I'm glad it is coming to the mac.

3rdpath

Feb 20, 2002, 08:57 PM

if you don't care that you're breaking the law thats cool. just remember to give a big smile to the person who steals your car stereo or nicks your ipod from your backback-he doesn't care if he's breaking the law either. he's not a thief- he's your bud.

its always cool until it happens to you.

AmbitiousLemon

Feb 20, 2002, 09:13 PM

ok im going to do it. im going to resport tyo name calling. because frankly 3rdpath you are a complete an utter idiot. your idiotic name calling is just not needed here. i think all intelligient discussion has quite conclusively shown it is not "stealing" "immoral" or "wrong" to share something. you can keep you idiotic right-wing brainwashing to yourself because the rest of us are sick and tired of hearing it. if you want to feel bad about yourself and others even though no one is doing anything wrong then join the republican party join your local catholic church and stop using macrumors and your computer. this will keep you quite unhappy, make you think very little of yourself and your fellow man, and keep you quite backward and culturally retarded. the rest of us will continue embracing our fellow man, will not be fooled into thinking that sharing and helping one another is wrong will feel good about ourselves and the world in which we live and will continue embracing the future and striving to change damaging social constructs such as current laws pertaining to the transfer of digital media and replace them with societally contructive markets that realistically apply technology and human innovation.

seriously now, did you even bother to read anything posted here or did you just go "bah, these people are communist morons, im not going to read this drivel" and skip on to the more mindless posts of Timothy and his cohorts? at least Timothy has read my and other's posts, even if he has no intelligient rebut to our arguments he hasnt degraded himself to yourlevel of childish witch hunting.

3rdpath

Feb 20, 2002, 09:47 PM

man oh man are you losing it ambitiouslemon. name calling just supports the fact that you have NOTHING to refute the basic fact that theft is theft. i've read your posts and even went to your site to read your " free software manifesto" and nothing you say has anything to do with this planet we inhabit. the manifesto has so many holes in it that its just sadly laughable. it looks like something i would of gotten reamed for during my freshman year in business school.

i found it fascinating that for all your "free software" rantings there wasn't any great free stuff for downloading on your site. its so easy to talk the talk but you definitely don't walk the walk. to scared to stand up for what you believe in? i'm not. when a buddy offered me $3000.00 worth of cracked software i turned him down. it wasn't easy- i wanted that stuff. but that's where we seperate the men from the boys.

i'm not going to change your delusional beliefs. why? because you have a serious problem. you call names, classify people by religion, political party and make snide inferences about people's familiar history.

and besides, you know everything already.

Gelfin

Feb 20, 2002, 09:47 PM

Woo, mischief, I didn't notice your location. You probably HAVE met more neurotic poseurs than I have. :D

I'm 100% with you that the whole "starving artist" thing is a pretension. The best artists I've ever known have not been the flaky Byron wannabes. Those are the ones who just don't want regular jobs. The really great artists I've met are organized, practical and focused. They put in long hours studying the technical aspects of their medium, because they know that meaningful expression doesn't happen just because you bought your outfit at an antique clothing store.

Now as far as theft of music, I don't think anybody has said that artists should not be compensated for their work. They invest labor in making something you find valuable, and basic ethics dictates that some compensation should be made when one person enjoys benefits of another's labor.

However, we've been kind of screwed over by publishers, where "we" means both consumers AND artists. They have insinuated this concept into our culture that an intellectual property asset should be treated exactly like a tangible asset. They were able to pull this off for a long, long time, because the publishers controlled production and distribution. People thus saw the medium and the content as synonymous. The thing that makes intellectual property different from tangible property is that intellectual property can be reproduced infinitely. In a tangible goods transaction, you have ten chickens and I have a dollar. I give you the dollar and you give me a chicken. You now have my dollar and nine chickens. In an intellectual property transaction, metaphorically speaking, I give you a dollar and you still have ten chickens. You can sell as many chickens as people want, for whatever price they'll pay, and at the end of the day you'll still have ten chickens. This is not an economically sound principle. Unlimited IP rights is literally like a license to print money. That's one reason the framers of the Constitution stipulated LIMITED intellectual property rights. The ability to make profit off your work encourages creation. The ability to charge infinitely for something at no incremental cost to oneself discourages creation, concentrates wealth artificially in the hands of intellectual property holders, creates monopolies, devalues currency and so forth.

Here's how I envision the life of a musician under a more reasonable system: You have your garage band, just like four or five other guys on your block. You play in the park on the weekend in your free time, while continuing to plan for getting a real job if necessary. People like your music, maybe toss some money in your hat. You use that money to print up some flyers to attract more people to your little weekend performances. Eventually, you become well-known enough locally that you can approach (or are approached by) local club owners. This brings you your first paying gigs, and gets you more attention, which gets you higher paying gigs and recognition in a wider area. As soon as your income from the music is high enough to cover the cost, you go online. Put MP3s of ALL your stuff on the web. Make them available through P2P yourself. Start putting your URL on the flyer, and mention it at your performances. Use your web stats to keep track of what people like from you, so you can be sure to play those at your performances. If you're actually good enough, you have the potential to become a star right now, through P2P and word of mouth. You can play to bigger crowds with people who will come in and pay money just to see you. Imagining that the labels didn't control the radio stations, you'd also get radio play, which is just more advertisement for your performances. At this point, you approach (or are approached by) my vision of "the labels," which are companies successful musicians hire to do advertising, arrange tours, handle merchandising, etc. "The labels" perform this service for a modest upfront fee and a contractually agreed upon percentage of the income for performances and merchandise.

You're now a successful music star. You've never mastered an album. You've never had to try to convince a stuffy record exec in a thousand dollar suit that you're the coolest punk thrash metal act in history. You've never signed your soul away to a publishing company. You've managed your own finances, and kept a very respectable percentage of them for yourself. And you've never sold anything intangible to anyone. You still have intellectual property rights and control. That's what you use to keep those loser guys down the street from copying your style once your music starts to catch on. But you never find yourself having to prosecute your fans for illegally downloading a riff from your biggest hit as a ringer for their cell phones.

See, what the labels are afraid everyone will figure out is that they're not really particularly necessary anymore. The Internet revolution has made many record industry jobs obsolete the same way that the industrial revolution made many manual labor jobs obsolete; the same way that the digital computer made many clerical jobs obsolete (bet you didn't realize "computer" used to mean a guy with a pencil and a roll of paper). Times change. The only difference is that the folks who feel endangered this time have far more money and power than those in the past.

3rdpath

Feb 20, 2002, 10:00 PM

if you're so into free software-why don't you spend the next two or three years writing a better program than FCP or protools and then release it free for the world to use. it would prove your arguement once and for all.

or is it only other people's long toiled work that should be free.

irmongoose

Feb 20, 2002, 10:28 PM

well here in japan... making copies of ur own CDs and stuff for personal use is OK.

irmongoose

IndyGopher

Feb 20, 2002, 10:54 PM

I'll stick my own two cents in here, just because I am really bad about not keeping my mouth shut when I have nothing constructive to say. Here, from my point of view, is the basic problem.

People are taught from nursery school on up that stealing is when person A has an item, and person B takes it. Person A then no longer HAS the item. Person B has stolen the item, depriving person A of it's use, value, etc.

This is not the case with software, music, movies, etc. Person A still has the "item". Person B also has the item. No material loss has been incurred by person A.

So, until such time that people can have it impressed upon them that there IS real, tangible loss involved with copying these materials, this will continue.

Oh, as an aside.. when you have bands like Metallica talk about how it's wrong to break the law, while they're totally baked, with glazed eyes and slurred words... all you do is bring derision and contempt from anyone who can spell the word irony.

AmbitiousLemon

Feb 21, 2002, 12:03 AM

Oh boy you are really pissig me off 3rdpath. IF you did read what i had written perhaps you actually would be able to counter some of my points but time and again uou have resorted to the childish tactics of a facist. ill insult you as i did in my last post simply because im angry and thats what you seem to respond to anyway. pages and pages of posts from intelligient people all telling you why you are worng hasnt made you either change your mind or develop your own counter to these people's ideas. you simply run around like a brain-washed automaton saying "your stealing" "your stealing" "i dont like your website!" what a loser. yes i will resort to name calling but im mixing in a few well put points as well. as far as me using religion and politics to make a point? i was simply using historical precedents to show you what company you are in when you make the sort of flipant statements you are making. i am not an artist. i play with photoshop and choose to share my creations with others. i have no pretentions about being an artist so please dont try to get under my skin by putting down my website. besides your ignorant views and refusal to counter a single argument made against you gets under my skin enough. if you want to bring something constructive to the forum then please actually read the posts and tell us why we are right or wrong. dont just keep falling back to the "its stealing so your wrong." as statement such as that simply reveals your on insecurities of your position, inadequate mental facility, and general childishness. as far as your ridiculous statement that nothing i have to stay has anything to do with the planet we inhabit... jeez if you did read wwhat i wrote you certainly must have a low comprehension. i provided you with a very powerful example of an industry that operates by providing product for free distribution while still compensating encourages and funding the creators of the product. this is why im not an artist, im in this field that has actually gotten its act together. besides im much better with molecular biology than i am with the photoshopfilter. so this also answers your proposal that i make a better fcp. im not a software designer. this isnt my field of expertise but like i said i have already spent many years of my life in a similar endeavour and will likely work the rest of my life making molecular biology's equivalent of a fcp. notice how i actually discussed and countered all your points (though insubstancial as they were). thats how its done kid. im not saying i know everything, im simply saying that you havent shown us that you know anything. so before you mouth off again please do what i have requested time and again, taken some time, read my posts think about and comprehend what you read and dont post again until you have something to say in the form of "you are right because..." or "you are wrong because.." instead of making flipant comments like "hey make fcp" or "thats just wrong" or "i thought that was laughable" or "that isnt up to my buiiness school's standards" why dont you actually point out why something is wrong and exactly how it is wrong. people were discussing this topic so constructively and intelligiently until you came along. if you arent smart enough to bring anything to the conversation then please dont chime in with your inane little comments. im tired of reading them and im tired of repeatedly telling you why you are wrong while trying to teach you how you should contructive a useful argument. im not a talented teacher, whenever i do teach a class or present a lecture i generally choose very gifted students, im not used to teaching america's mediocre masses. if you cant learn to participate in an academic conversation then just sit back try to absorbe what you can and if you dont agree with some of us then take special note of why other's are saying we are wrong, but dont chime in with your own inadequate comments.

btw i dont wnat to insult anyone else here or discourage others to participate. everyone else seems to be holding their own just fine. and although i have mentioned some serious flaws in Timothy's points id have to say i definitely expect him to come back as soon as he cane and flesh out his arguments appropriately. (at least i certainly hope he will.)

[ed note: yes, let's not degenerate into name calling... take it to email if you must flame each other...

arn
]

j763

Feb 21, 2002, 12:38 AM

3rdpath == you sir, are a sanctomonious windbag. I seriously doubt that you have NEVER broken copyright law. Did you know that if my friends come over to my house, it is ILLEGAL under US law for me to turn on a CD unless they each own a legal copy of the CD that I choose to play?

You might not like the idea of people getting audio CDs for free... well, hey, I don't like going out and paying $150USD for a copy of Office v.X and then seeing it for free on Hotline or Limewire... But it's not worth censoring the internet, is it??!

Gelfin

Feb 21, 2002, 01:16 AM

Originally posted by irmongoose
well here in japan... making copies of ur own CDs and stuff for personal use is OK.

I know there are differences between American and Japanese copyright law. One of the most important ones is that in Japan, failure to prosecute people who infringe on your copyrights doesn't diminish your right to sue other people later. In the US it might. The person you sue could show the court that you had not sued other people in the past for doing similar things, and the judge might rule against you for that reason. I've never liked that feature of the US law.

In theory, though, making copies of things for "personal use" is okay in the US too. It falls under the "fair use" provision of copyright law. But the major media companies in the US have been working very hard over the last ten years to narrow the definition of "fair use," and ideally (for them) to eliminate it altogether, which basically means they could charge royalties every time you hum a song in the shower.

LethalWolfe

Feb 21, 2002, 01:18 AM

Originally posted by mischief
No one is proposing a true communist/anarchist system here. As nice as that would be there is too much entrenched greed to allow it to happen.

Since this thread is already OT, I'll just take it in one more direction ;). I think that laziness, not greed, is why "pure" communism will never work. Here's my reasoning on this. Person A is an average worker, and Person B is a lazy slug who never pulls his own weight. Person A starts getting pissed that Person B is enjoying the rewards of everyone else's labor, but is contributing nothing. So Person A decides to take action. He can either say, "to hell with this," join Person B and become a mooch who doesn't work or he can refuse to give Person B the fruits of his labor(for example, if A is a diary farmer he won't give B any more milk) until Person B starts working. Either way "pure" communism no longer exists.

Everyone wants to do the most work w/the least amount of effort (you can either call that lazy or efficient). Are get rich quick schemes for the greedy or the lazy? For every Bill Gates or Donald Trump I bet there are a thousand people who'd rather "work" the welfare system than get a job.

Lethal

Timothy

Feb 21, 2002, 02:04 AM

Ambitious...let's slow down and see if we can't understand each other's position a bit better.

You've posted an article that attempts to argue that Intellectual Property should not exist (I am paraphrasing). The author is mainly arguing in the realm of software. If I need to, I'll be happy to go through his points 1-by-1; but it will take some time. Before we go there, however, let's define our positions better. I'd rather converse with you, since you're here, than with the author, who is not here.

You seem to agree with the author that the work that I do that is easily copied is fundamentally different than the work someone else does which is not easily copied, correct? In other words, if I spend 3 years writing a book, and my neighbor spends three years inventing a new mousetrap, fundamentally, he should be able to charge for his work, and I should be expected to give my work away for free. Is that your position?

3rdpath

Feb 21, 2002, 02:22 AM

i mean, all this entertainment for free? i guess this is your contribution to the art world mr lemon. i haven't laughed this much in a long time.

[edited

Take it to email, if you must...

arn
]

and mischief, no hard feelings-you're a good sport. we'll talk again.

arn

Feb 21, 2002, 05:41 AM

Originally posted by Gelfin

I know there are differences between American and Japanese copyright law. One of the most important ones is that in Japan, failure to prosecute people who infringe on your copyrights doesn't diminish your right to sue other people later. In the US it might. The person you sue could show the court that you had not sued other people in the past for doing similar things, and the judge might rule against you for that reason. I've never liked that feature of the US law.

You are mistaken... you are thinking of Trademarks

arn

iflyguns

Feb 21, 2002, 07:42 AM

Morpheus for the Mac....Great! One less reason to have PC around the house.

AmbitiousLemon

Feb 21, 2002, 09:41 AM

Hey there Tim welcome back. Sorry 3rd and i got into such mud slinging. i think J763 put it best so ill leave it at that and try to respond to the more reasonable crowd. like you Tim.

I would have to say i completely agree with the statement you made. the informantion itself created should be free, and if the creator wishes to enter the market they need to do so realistically and charge for what should be charged for and expect not charge for what should not be charged for. if i want a cd of music, a book, a dvd, etc. then i should pay the going rate for tese things. these are material objects. and even though the information on these can be obtained freely the material manifestation should be paid for. This represents some (not the whole) revenue for the creator. A creator needs to be mindful of their medium and go about funding and icome accordingly. I do not see why creators of music, software, etc do not seem to think this rule does not apply to them. Anyone be for attempting to sell an item or service decides how the market will respond to various ways they attempt to bring their service or item to market and they target their efforts accordingly. Creators of intellectual property do not seem t have been able to switch their mindset. Where once they had an item that was very much tied to the physical medium it was distributed on and therefore nearly unseparable from the material it is now freed from the medium and therefore should not be marketed in the same manner in which the material is marketed. This probably sounds pretty obscure and long winded but as i have said repeatedly other areas have been working and making a living marketing nonmaterial items and in most of these cases the item is allowed to be distributed freely as long as it is not tied to a physical medium, all credit is given where it is do, and the item is not used for monetrary gain without money being given to the creator. Its really quite simple when one reviews how other areas have embraced the free echange of nonmaterial items. It is difficult for a market to take such a fundamental change in how it conducts its buisiness. I don not know of (this hardly means they do not exist) examples of an industry that has made such a switch. But if the music industry wants to have a realistic and moral system for marketing their product then they must make such a change.

I do not see that i have said much that you should disagree with. i agree creators should be paid for what they have created. i agree thats cds, books, dvds, and services such as movie theaters should expect people to pay for these items. these are items still tied to the physical world. but the actual item itself the immaterial item which can be reproduced without cost should be distributed freely. i listen to mp3s i still pay for cds, i download software i still pay for the cds with the software, i download movies and still pay to see movies in the theater. this will not change. people value the material far more than the immaterial and will want their favorite immaterial items in hard physical form.

i thought of a argument against what i have brought up so i will share. physical labor is immaterial and still has a real value. of course physical labor can not be reproduced without costs, so i suppose this does not apply. the freeness of the reproduction and not the immaterialness i suppose then is the true reason for items being free.

i honestly dont see why you disagree with what i have said other than a couple things: 1) you dont believe a system as i describe is possible and 2) you have some tie to the current system and feel that rationalizing it would harm you.

all i can say in response to these things is that these are positions of feeling not thought. since systems as i have describe exist and flourish in the capitalist world number one doesnt seem to apply. number two might be better argument. the change itself will be difficult and many people tied to certain aspects of the current system might find themselves in a very different position in the new system. but here we re talking about transitory personal risk that a fact that makes the system i describe immoral or unattainable. as with any social change it must be gradual to alleviate tensions brought on by item 2.

im sure you have more points other than the 2 i have listed and likely you will claim 1 and 2 are not points you subscribe to (i dont know) so please share id love to hear them. i must say i really like the attitude you have taken in the last post it sounds far more constructive. so lets continue in this far more constructive manner.

Timothy

Feb 21, 2002, 09:59 AM

Thanks for the answers, Ambitious. A follow up question before I dive into the specifics. If I am the inventor of the mousetrap, how much should I be able to charge for the mousetrap? Do I only charge for the exact material cost of the mousetrap? Or, can I increase the cost to cover such things as the packaging, marketing, and finally, to compensate me for the "idea" of the mousetrap and the time it took to create it?

Also, you stated "systems as i have describe exist and flourish in the capitalist world." Can you list some examples, just so that I know of which you speak?

MrMacMan

Feb 21, 2002, 10:42 AM

Normally I would says my oppion on this topic of the law, but it is pritty fuzzy. Execpt for napster and the melenium 2000 act in the U.S the law does not say mcuh execpt don't steal stuff. But, I express my concern againwhen it is coming? I have checked up on there site, and nothing. So steal musci, steal songs, people are doing it anyway. The gov't doesn't care. Go and download Private Beta's and software up to your hearths content cause no one's doing anything about it.

mischief

Feb 21, 2002, 10:44 AM

Timmothy:

The mousetrap. I build a better mousetrap. Under existing statutes I can:

A). File for a patent, thus protecting both the specific design data (intangeable) and the rights to it's production in a specific market. This act realisticly only protects my work while the Patent is being reviewed, in which time the Patent is confidential between me and the Government I register with. As soon as this Patent is approved it becomes publicly viewable and if I do not have the cash to legally defend the barrage of Corporate attempts to acquire this Patent I'm screwed.

B). File a copyright. This protects the Data but not the key theories of the creation. In essence a copyright only protects the intellectual rights to any written material on the diagrams and the literal imagery of the design. Any yahoo can, at this point build a mousetrap with the same innovative technique as long as HIS design differs significantly enough to convince a court that the technique is incidental and coincidental.

C). Get a lawyer and sell the design outright to a corporation at a potentially, though unlikely enormous proffit.

D). Sell my mousetraps to local Exterminators, creating income and distribute the design via a website under the stipulation that it is MY intellectual property and by downloading the design you are agreeing to share any monetary compensation for use of the design. In exchange, you get to refine the design and I will pay you a modest sum of any proffits I make from your improvements. this is the open source principal. I may have left a few things out, but this is my understanding.

Does that help?

Timothy

Feb 21, 2002, 10:53 AM

Mischief...what do you do for a living?

MrMacMan

Feb 21, 2002, 10:57 AM

He is on the Apple Legal team. :)
Where the heck did you pull all of that info from?
I need to know when it is coming to the mac!!!
Tell me!!!

mischief

Feb 21, 2002, 11:28 AM

It's a little embarrassing. The reason I know all this stuff is I've been researching business Law for 10 years. I started with being curious about opening a night club but I'm currently refining an international Telecom idea. Over those 10 years I've written 5 or so business profiles that required more capital risk than I was willing to expose myself to when ballanced against potential returns and risk of failure. This latest plan, though is innovative and devious. It will require BIG money to start but the returns will be exponential.

I was raised in an intellectual family by a systems analyst (BS in Psych) and an Architectural designer. Both were 1st generation Geeks in Palo Alto during the punchcard days. My early childhood was spent in a small town in Canada, where I learned my values. I have always sought Truth (read Accurate Data) over Dogma (read Fixed Model) and I have NO tolerance for encouraging Ignorance and Fear for personal gain.

If YOU want to know all this stuff buy the Nolo Press legal series of Business "How To" books and make extensive use of Sherlock. If you want to understand it all: Never assume that ANY Data is the absolute truth. Never assume it is beyond comprehension or requires any special talent to understand. Never assume that an Idea is beyond your means and NEVER let ANYONE impose their Dogma on your research.

Timothy

Feb 21, 2002, 11:34 AM

This latest plan, though is innovative and devious. It will require BIG money to start but the returns will be exponential.

Mischief...I'm always looking for new business Ideas. Please post your "latest plan" here, or email it to me.

Thanks.

MrMacMan

Feb 21, 2002, 11:43 AM

It's good to be a smart person...
Oh the this with becoming a lawyer is that the profession is spitting out 2 for every person on the earth by 2007.
So soon we have are own 2 for each of us.

Okay, so when is it coming?
I need morpheus... The sooner the better.
The sooner the more *cough* legal downloads, I can make.

dutchmaster

Feb 21, 2002, 11:57 AM

i tried to stop this several days ago with some blatant unoriginal namecalling but it obviously didn't work. ok, tim, 3rdwave, whatever..i'm a thief, a greedy hypocrite. i also love fifteen year old girls, blaring my subwoofer at inhuman levels and smoking crack before my job as an elementary school busdriver. but most of all i get my jollies downloading photoshop for free. if this allows you to define yourself in opposition to me, great. you are moral and pure as newfallen snow. i am the axis of evil. now, can we talk about morpheus...what are people's experiences with it on the pc. is it more mp3's than apps? what is the search mechanism like? GUI? has anyone heard when it will be released for mac? any rumors? that is the topic right?

Timothy

Feb 21, 2002, 12:57 PM

Via email, Mischief wrote to me:

The Idea is about $10 million worth of total startup. The returns over 10-20 years are incalculable. The structure can be run by 20 employees or less.

The core can be discussed in person or I can send you the company name, my name and the name of the Idea and you can send me back a generic Draconian confidentiality agreement with that data filled in along with your own. The business doesn't legally exist yet so researching it would be fruitless. Once we have established the formalities I'll explain the core concepts.

Mischief...I'm a bit confused regarding your position. Earlier, you seemed to be advocating open and free access to ideas and information; at least you seem to be supporting Ambitious Lemon's position.

If so, what is the role of a "confidentiality agreement" as you have requested above? And, if they are "draconian" as you have indicated, why then did you request one?

Just post the information; isn't that the position you are presenting? Please clarify.

3rdpath

Feb 21, 2002, 01:08 PM

its always cool until it happens to you.

mischief

Feb 21, 2002, 01:33 PM

Nice try guy. Some data-based products and Data at large are appropriate to freely distribute as indicated above. Under NO circumstances did I describe simply GIVING the data away. Ideas that directly manifest gain and are distinctly diminished in value (such as the business plans of a company designed to open or create a market) by free distribution are NOT appropriate for this kind of distribution. However: specific parts of that plan may be. Free Distribution is best used for products that are enhanced by open distribution and even these usually include liscencing and proffit sharing.

If the business was, say a Nightclub in a given localle I wouldn't restrict things as talking about it on an open Forum would constitute advertising. As the business in question IS designed to both open AND create an as yet un-tapped market on a grand scale open distribution is neither appropriate or bennificial.

If you think this constitutes hypocrisy you have missed the point. The point is that the Internet and open distributed standards like MP3 and P2P have changed the way intellectual property AS A PRODUCT (which a business plan ISN'T) is used, generated and distributed. The fact that the Law and the contributing businesses have not caught on is simply enertia. Whether it seems moral or not P2P exists and exists as a free and open distribution method.

Banking is a good example of an industry that has adapted and will continue to adapt. When Electronic credit was introduced and Gold was removed from currency as a standard comparable conditions existed. Did Banks resist and try to kill the change? Yes. Did they eventually adapt? Sort of: They integrated (and still are integrating) Electronic credit and Banking, giving us new toys like overdraft protection, which is built in limited Credit used to temporarily cover insufficient funds. They are currently pushing as an industry to phase out cash and tie your overdraft, Credit, direct deposit and account together as 1 thing. This is why I proposed opensource Banking. A free and open method of storing and controlling my funds removes the ability of Banks to limit how I use my money.

That's what I mean by freedom of information. I believe that I should control my own Data. If I want to share it thats MY business. If I don't I won't. P2P is a valuable tool that has yet to find the context it was created to fill. It IS currenty mis-used. If you are going to make money with a product PAY FOR IT. However If I own Photoshop and I'm not currently using it I feel I should be able to let someone use it as long as I don't charge for the use and they don't start a business with it.

3rdpath

Feb 21, 2002, 02:40 PM

i do believe you are being hypocritical. according to your previous post regarding the better mousetrap:

C). Get a lawyer and sell the design outright to a corporation at a potentially, though unlikely enormous proffit.

at this point, your design whether it be an idea or a business plan is indeed a product. this procedure occurs daily in the form of venture funding. there is a monetary exchange for a percentage of stock-all based upon the mere "idea" of a company.

and this has been my point from the beginning: ideas are valuable. the people who create these ideas can share them with or without any contingencies they wish. if your don't care for the contingencies then create your own version of the product.

mischief

Feb 21, 2002, 03:10 PM

Yes. Selling out DOES make intellectual property a product but you are incorrect in your example of Venture Capital.

Capitalization of a business would be a product for money transaction but for the fact that the VC is not buying the whole Idea, merely investing in it's success. VC is better described with the Open Source analogy: I have an Idea, the Idea has "x" value. I then share the idea with a limited number of people who legally agree not to exploit the Idea without cutting me in. At this point an improvement is made by the Capitalist in the form of investment, increasing the value of "x". Note that the Capitalist is not buying the idea but investing/partnering (speculating) in the future returns of the idea.Nor is the idea literally defined as "x+investment=value" after this point as the idea has NO value until it is applied. After the idea is applied it only has value as a formula, all the real assets lie in the business separate from the concept. Without the person who defined the idea it loses value because in someone elses head it isn't the same idea. Steve Jobs is a brilliant example of this.

Selling out is the ONLY example of intellectual property becoming a tangeable product.

graydecember

Feb 21, 2002, 03:35 PM

There will be many sophistical reasons given on why it should be ok to fileshare, and support can be found within the *bloatware* legal system, but the fact is, the one who creates someone intended for sale and then finds people are downloading it for free is getting screwed.

As fas as cd's go, I feel the satisfaction of owning the original, complete with artwork, etc., --instead-- of having some thrown together piece of compressed audio blippy inkjet crap... that by the way obviates the need for me to spend my money on the cd (=artist getting screwed). I like ambient and experimental music, and some of the original pressings are limited to as few as 100 copies, so if I have to I download stuff like that- then when I find the original I buy it. For out of print music, there's no other way to get it sometimes, and obviously the artist doesn't get anything for it (like the brilliant Orb/Fripp "FFWD")...

I wonder how folks from Steinberg, Native Instruments, Adobe, Connectix, etc. Feel about filesharing? What sort of feelings do they have when they look at Limewire and see 30 matches returned fo "Photoshop 6.0" or "Cubase VST32 full + dongle"? I wonder how well the arguments of the proponents of Filesharing work on them...

Anyway, I've downloaded my share (ha) of stuff but I feel pretty guilty about! If I had the kind of money some of you cats have I think I would consider figuring out what it is you've downloaded that is worth using, and then paying up and becoming a registered user- Even OxYgEn and Zone 'crackers' advocate paying for stuff~

3rdpath

Feb 21, 2002, 03:38 PM

i appreciate your admission but you're incorrect about the venture funding.

here's why: you have an idea that's worth $100.00. you then bring in venture funding and lets say they buy half-now you each own $50.00 (or 50%) of the idea. the idea has not increased in value at all. estimated future revenues have been previously included in it's value. thats the way the market works. the tech bubble showed time and again that all the $$ in the world won't increase the value of a bad idea. as far as the idea suddenly becoming a "zero value" when the company begins-you couldn't be more wrong. all of your assets are bought with your cash-its a zero sum on your balance sheet-once again, its the idea that has the value. the only time the value of the idea will change is if and when the idea proves to generate more or less revenue than expected.

graydecember

Feb 21, 2002, 03:41 PM

the one who creates someone intended for sale and then finds people are downloading it for free is getting screwed.

Concerning my previous post of a few minutes ago, it should read:

the one who creates something intended for sale and then finds people are downloading it for free is getting screwed.

If you are indeed capable of creating some*one* intended for sale, let me know, as I have many contacts on the street/ white slave trade~

:p

Timothy

Feb 21, 2002, 03:45 PM

Mischief states:

the idea has NO value until it is applied.

If the idea has "NO value" as you assert here, then please don't delay, post it so that we may all benefit from this valueless idea...

The only reason I can think for you not posting it is that it "must have value" to you.

mischief

Feb 21, 2002, 03:56 PM

That is: It is still a PARTNERSHIP. I haven't lost my rights to the idea and the investor hasn't taken them. The idea has no intrinsic value except that which is agreed upon to create the business and it usually does not contribute to the value of the business in it's literal form unless the business creates ideas as it's product, in which case things get complicated.

The overall point is that some intellectual property bennefits from being shared. Other intellectual property is too closely tied to the literal value it may contribute to creating. The existing system of laws does not adequately take the nature of digital information being reproduced, not exchanged into account.

mischief

Feb 21, 2002, 04:04 PM

It would be a good arguement if I was not applying the idea. Just because the idea has not created a business with cash flow yet does not mean that I am not actively utilizing it. If I was of the position that ALL data should be distributed without compensation to ANYONE I would already have Hacked your machine and spred it's contents over the whole Net, girlie pics and all.

This is not the case. I am of the position that Data distribution systems should not be suppressed because businesses haven't figured out how to use them yet.

mischief

Feb 21, 2002, 04:07 PM

Several times and in many carefully obfuscated pieces over many months. Good luck figuring it out though. Just because I support freedom of information does not mean I don't believe in good encryption practices or security protocols.

3rdpath

Feb 21, 2002, 04:28 PM

and suddenly the thread turns into a plot for mission impossible!

Timothy

Feb 21, 2002, 04:52 PM

Mischief...I don't mean to belabor the points. In essence, I think we agree. You have clearly expressed that:

1) ideas have value to creator of the idea
2) Intellectual property rights do exist
3) You have a right to control your own Intellectual property
4) Intellectual property should be paid for when used for business
5) Software should be paid for

The only issues I take with your ideas above are that I believe that there is value, even beyond the narrow confines of "business" in which the creator of an idea can rightly expect to be paid directly for that property. You seem to agree in that you earlier agreed that artists should be paid. This, btw, is very different than the position that Ambitious Lemmon is taking; he is arguing, by way of his "article" that there is no such thing as Intellectual Property, and that all software should be given away for free. I don't see the connection between his ideas and yours, but as soon as he responds to the questions I posed to him earlier, we'll explore that further.

I think the "corruption" of the entertainment industry has been overstated by many on this thread in an attempt to justify their actions; the rightful response, in a semi-capitalist society, if you don't like a business, is to spend your money with a competitor to that business, not to "steal" the property of that business.

Earlier, you stated that you think it falls to Artists to come up with new means of distribution/compensation. I agree. That has been my point all along. I am actively engaged in this process now. However, I want to ask one final question to clarify your position:

My wife is an independent musician. She has chosen to build her music career separate from the major labels. We have developed new, and unique ways of marketing her music. Still, CD sales are the #1 source of income for her. She has chosen to release a few songs for free via her web site; this choice is hers.

If you buy her album, do you think you should have the right to post the remaining songs of her album on a P2P network, without her permission? Again, she is not party to the business practices of the major labels.

mischief

Feb 21, 2002, 05:19 PM

Remember I talked about P2P banking? This would be an excellent application.

I feel that until I choose to move the data to a non-volatile media that can be played in a conventional CD player the data is just data. My HD could go down at any moment, a CD however is an actual reproduction of the original work and as such should involve a royalty. That royalty I would freely pay.......... to the Artist. I feel that P2P should be used in concert with movement toward on-the-fly compensation at the point the data either goes to a burner or is played in public.

Clarification: If P2P was set up so that my player pays out to (the regulatory agency that keeps track of radio play) when I write a track to CD I would be cool with that....Once per track. If P2P was used to provide a database of on-the-fly streamable MP3 to radio stations and each access of a track paid out automatically compensation would be directly proportionate to play. Both of these solutions are NOT the attitude or tactic currently being used but they would conform to where tech has gone.

I have no interest in paying Virgin Records for every MP3 when I acquire it if I may already own the CD. Likewise I have no interest in paying $15.00-$60.00 for an "encrypted" CD that will not play on any of my CD players (I've already experienced this). I like supporting Artists. I HATE supporting publishers. Besides, I feel that Live Performance is worth far more and THAT should be the major revinue for an artist, like it used to be.

Timothy

Feb 21, 2002, 05:40 PM

Hmmm....it appears that we yet disagree.

Imagine that I create a "private" subscription only back-end to my wife's web site. To gain access to this site, you have to pay a yearly subscription (one of the possible new revenue streams that we've discussed). On this private web site, my wife posts previously unreleased songs in a digital format. The primary benefit to joining this site is that you will have access to this material.

If given access to this material as a paying member of the site, do you yet think you have the right to post this material to a P2P network?

mischief

Feb 21, 2002, 05:59 PM

If yer silly enough to post a real MP3 and not a streaming iRadio station?

Yes, absolutely.

A lot of the problem is that publishers are trying to keep using the same techniques for Data as they did for LP's. If you want to make $$ with a website for up and comers don't post any MP3's of any real quality and don't try to sell subscriptions. Subscriptions only work for MUD games. If you want better revinue sell CDs burn-by-burn. Allow people to construct playlists of the songs they like then charge them for either a CD you then ship out to them or a compressed playlist of higher quality MP3's (too big for 56K).

Timothy

Feb 21, 2002, 06:18 PM

Mischief...thanks for the conversation.

I find your logic mystifying, and your stance dangerous. On this issue, I guess we find ourselves on opposite ends of the spectrum.

You obviously care not for the independent artist as you have tried to claim previously; that you would willfully deny the artist the ability to dictate the usage of their Intellectual property, and yet claim that right for yourself, is contradictory. For example, you wanted me to sign a confidentiality agreement before you would share your ideas with me. According to your theory, it appears that the decision to uphold my end of this agreement is entirely a matter of choice for me. As you would clearly violate a "private" agreement with any "subscription" based music service.

So, while you may call me "thick headed" I'll merely end the conversation by stating that I think your moniker is well-chosen.

mischief

Feb 21, 2002, 06:26 PM

Dude, all I was saying is that if you actually expect people to PAY to get into a site with MP3's on it they're gonna P2P them, guarenteed. People act under the presumption of fair use: Once I've paid for it it's mine. Whether this is legally true or not it is how people behave. If you actually expect people to subscribe and NOT P2P you are in for a suprise. If you put out good quality product in a format people know is easy to share, they will.......every time. There's no way to force people to do it your way.....the digital cat exists outside the bag. In fact the Digital Cat exists in EVERY bag in town.

3rdpath

Feb 21, 2002, 07:08 PM

mischief, you've only dug yourself one large hole.

you argue one way but when it comes time to walk the walk-you won't.

it seems the basic consensus of this thread is that if you create shareable information you want to protect it. if you don't, then you think the info should be free. ( and you jump from side to side as it suits you...)

quote "If you put out good quality product in a format people know is easy to share, they will.......every time."

not true. never was. never will be.

mischief

Feb 21, 2002, 07:19 PM

There is no "one side or the other" as there are no sides. The technology to share is free and available. MP3 ripping is free and available. Human nature is (like any predator) to expend as little as possible to acquire ANYTHING. If you post a whole file, not a streaming file but a whole file IT WILL BE SHARED. This has nothing to do with my position, it has everything to do with human nature.

If an artist has a website and wants to control the contents DON'T USE A PORTABLE FILE TYPE!!!!!

The point is: DON'T EXPECT PEOPLE TO PLAY FAIR.

Given the oppertunity, you WILL get ripped off. However, there is a middle ground. I have outlined it and been ignored. If you fools can't see the fact that the world ain't fair Darwin will shut you up for me. If I leave my wallet on my front porch am I an idiot? YES. Control your damn data and stop whining.

samy85114

Feb 21, 2002, 07:39 PM

You're absolutely right..

I mean, if you are giving the opportunity to the world to listen
to your music in a portable format as mischief said.. Be sure that file will be shared all around the world. I guess, the solution is to put them online is a streaming format, whatever it is...

But by the way, this is my tought but i'm also enjoying the Peer-to-peer system ( morpheus, limewire )... I know, this is probably not the best way to stop that illegal sharing, but all of my favorites songs are available there.... and i'm a human being.... and if it's free...

MacNut

Feb 27, 2002, 09:52 PM

I have been reading all of your posts and am going to throw in my opinion. I am watching the grammys and the egos are so big in that room. I heard that guy in charge of the academy bitch and moan about fileshareing and I tried to keep a straight face when he just about kissed the ass of the riaa. As he said the artists are losing money, some how i dont think Britney Spears would notice as she bought a 2 milllion dollar house and the average person trying to make a living as he put it cant afford a mansion. So i dont by it when the artists complain that they are losing money when most of them have so much that they dont even know what to do with it . Maybe if i had all that money i could pay the $20 for a cd and not have to worry about gas money.

Jookbox

Feb 28, 2002, 12:01 AM

Reject the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel webcasting recommendations. A friend sent me this message.

On February 20th, the U.S. Copyright Office received a royalty rate
recommendation by their Copyright and Arbitration panel (CARP). The
recommendation was in the form of a per-song-streamed fee ($.0014 per
song per listener, or about 2¢ an hour for a 15-song hour).

Let's just say that if a webcaster had 1,000 people listening to their
stream simultaneously for a year, then they would owe approximately
$175,200 in royalty rates.for that year. This royalty rate would be
retroactive to 1998. If you can find me an independent webcaster that is
making enough revenue to cover that type of expense, then I'll eat my
hat.

The RIAA initially asked that webcasters pay 15% of their gross revenues
for licensing. Although that is still quite a bit to ask for, it's a
hell of a lot better than the CARP recommendation. It is my belief that
if this royalty rate is adopted, there won't be any more Internet radio.

Here's where you come in... Just the other day I took the liberty of
putting together a petition to send to the U.S. Copyright Office. It
basically states that the U.S. Copyright Office reject the CARP royalty
recommendation and hopefully consider a more reasonable royalty rate.

Please sign it and pass along the word if you are of like mind.

The Librarian of Congress must accept or reject the CARP report by May
21st. You can email the Librarian at: lcweb@loc.gov

Visit these websites for more information:
http://www.kurthanson.com
http://www.digmedia.org
http://www.anti-DMCA.org
http://www.loc.gov/copyright

http://www.petitiononline.com/carp/petition.html

now who's defending the RIAA here?

Ellsk8ter433

Mar 2, 2002, 06:46 PM

Wasn't this thread originally about Morpheus coming to mac? If you want to rant about filesharing and its legality then go start a new thread. I think that morpheus is going to be great because i use it on my PC all the time. I just hope that KaZaA will realize that it should go to mac also.:)

bunge

Mar 2, 2002, 09:37 PM

My two cents....

$0.01: Fair use. Even the DMCA has a contingency for fair use.

$0.02: Tax. There's a tax built into the cost of a blank CD-R to cover the POSSIBILITY of piracy. So all fair use users that purchase a CD-R are paying a fine for the intent to commit piracy even though they haven't yet committed a crime or may never intend to commit a crime.

Sorry if either of these issues were covered, but I couldn't read every post out of these six pages....

unitation

Mar 5, 2002, 03:13 PM

I quote Timothy:

A major label, on average, spends about $750k recording and producing an album for one of their bands. The label nets approximately $4 of each album sold, meaning that just for the label to break even, the band has to sell 187,500 albums at full retail cost. Now, factor in that somewhere less than 10% of all bands sell anywhere near that many CD's (and even fewer sell significantly more than that), and you begin to see where the economics of the situation come into play. The labels lose money on most bands, and contrary to one post earlier in this thread, the risk is entirely upon the shoulders of the label; the bands are not responsible for the money that is put into them by the label, except that some of the costs are recoupable out of sales.
-------------------------------------

Okay, I know this is from an older post, but i just got here and this whole debate started to bother me. I am an "independent" music(which basically means i have no money). Now, I'm not going to get into the whole "is it right to steal" thing, cause i don't care. I buy a lot of music, and I also download a lot of music. My problem is this: you say a record label spends about $750k to record one of their bands. So I pose this question: Why would you spend that much money to produce CRAP like Britney Spears, Nsync, Backstreet Boys, and so on and so on. The way those CD's sound isn't worth $7.50 let alone $750k. Many bands that are A LOT better than 95% of the crap you hear on the radio(which the labels pay to play their bands) record their own music in their own houses, studios, garages, etc. Take the Foo Fighters for example. They recorded one of their latest CD's in their own basement and it sounds better than ANY of the pop stars' CD's. So why not spend less on producing that crap, and get some bands with real talent who can make a CD for cheaper and then the record label could lower the prices on CD's. I am almost finished with my first CD and it has only cost me about $800 so far, and sounds better than Britney will ever sound(not to toot my own horn, it's just a fact). So the record labels can go cry about their losses and really lose in the end or they can start giving the people what they really want.

The only reason that Britney and the rest sell so many CD's is that the record labels pay the radio stations to play only certain stuff. And many of the radio stations are owned by the same people(ex. Clear Channel owns, i think, 4 of the 7 or 8 main stations in Cincinnati. The bands that I listen to and buy CD's from don't get any airplay in Cincy or Louisville(they may get some in other places, but i don't know, those are the only two cities i've lived in so far). If the record labels are worried about not getting their money back on their bands, why don't they promote the really good bands more, instead of filling up the radio waves with worthless, soulless noise. And the stations don't play that stuff cause the people want to hear it. It has been my experience that the majority of people(the masses) will listen and buy anything the media tells them is cool. If they hear it enough times on the radio, they'll think it's great. That's why the record labels like to promote musicians they can just throw away after a while(not really MUSICIANS), with, of course, the exception of some bands who really are great and become very successful.

And one final note:
If I'm not mistaken(which I am, sometimes), RECORD SALES ACTUALLY WENT UP WHEN NAPSTER WAS UP AND RUNNING....

thanks for letting me vent.........