OiNK Raided and Owner Arrested.

[zioxide]

I buy a lot of music from smaller labels and from acts that are not household names at all.

File sharing doesn't really hurt indie artists either. An example:

Dispatch gained much recognition outside of New England, without any help from a label, thanks to peer-to-peer file sharing programs such as Napster and LimeWire, as well as word-of-mouth. During their rise to indie fame, they put out four studio albums, which progressed from acoustic albums to more distortioned records. After the release of their last album, "Who Are We Living For?", they began to tour extensively nationwide.

They announced they were "going on hiatus" in 2004.

Upon the announcement of its hiatus, the band scheduled one final concert. The free show was performed at the Hatch Shell in Boston on July 31, 2004. "The Last Dispatch," as it was referred, is said to be the largest concert in independent music history. The original prediction of the turnout was between 10,000 and 30,000. Fans reportedly flocked from Italy, Portugal, South Africa, and Australia among others...In the end, over 110,000 strong showed up to see Dispatch play what was believed to be one last time.

So yeah, without file sharing Dispatch never would have become as popular and successful as they did.

(quotes from wiki)

 

[Fiveos22]

No-one's saying you can stop piracy; but what I want to see is people be honest, hold up their hands and say: 'Yeah, I do it because I can get stuff for free' instead of trying to justify their actions by ridiculous arguments about the music industry or whatever.

What you want to hear is what you want to hear, like you said. You have already made a decision about it and won't deign to any other arguments.

The cornerstone of capitalism is that the consumer, through the market, decides and what is produced by voting with his or her pocket book. "Pirates" are voting with their pocket books: their vote says "yes, we like this content, but no we do not like the price". To say that a "pirate" is a sink hole for free content is silly.

Case Study

How many people downloaded Radiohead's pay-what-you-want album legally or illegally? (I'll use this argument because a downloading for a price of $0 and paying $0 for an illegal download are equal economically) About 1/3 of the estimated 1.7 million copies in circulation were pirated downloads. Bear in mind that Radiohead albums are remarkably consistant sellers, hitting the top of the Billboard 200 chart regularly. In the first week of issue, the current Radiohead album had a circulation six times greater than their previous album.

What conclusions can we draw from this:
Either
1) This album is groundshakingly amazing,
or
2) The consumers voted with their wallet and the results said that at the right price Radiohead's consistantly good product is much better.


I doubt this album is that amazing...the price difference probably made the biggest change. All the same, how many people (in total) have downloaded the Project Gutenberg dvd? It too is free and currently 100% legal...and there are thousands of bestseller books there.

Just because its free doesn't mean people will download it...music artists make a desirable product, but they have to accept what the market is willing to pay for that product. Downloading music for free is a direct message to artists about where along the supply & demand curve their product lies.

 

[Blue Velvet]

But no, apparently I'm a sniveling little stealing bitch who doesn't give a **** about anyone involved...

Where did I say that? Where did I say anything about it being evil? I'd take more time to respond to your points if you didn't put silly words in my mouth... and what's more, I'm not going far at all, just putting forward a point of view which is generally lacking around here. And I'm quite calm about the whole thing, mainly because I have nothing to defend myself against.

I would have gladly paid a large monthly fee for a legal service as good as Oink - but none existed, because the music industry could never set aside their own greed and corporate ******** to make it happen.

Exactly where I find myself... but I'm prepared to still put my money where my mouth is. Maybe that's foolish, maybe that's blind... but I know it's the right thing for now. I can't hold with the anti-establishment rant in the latter stages of the article because I know that many of my favourite albums have come about because of the music industry, not in spite of it.

In other areas of life, I break the law. And I'm happy to hold my hand up and say 'yeah, I break the law' and I happily recognise that I do it entirely for my own reasons and wants... I don't try and justify it on any other grounds than that.

You have already made a decision about it and won't deign to any other arguments.

At the core of my belief here, is that I'm a content creator... I'm a designer. And I have a tremendous respect for those who make a living by creating things — software, music, art, film, video, design, fashion — that people want to buy or own. And I believe that their interests should be protected and put far above those who want these things for absolutely nothing.

This is not a decision, this is a core and fundamental belief that's central to my trade and that can only be argued against if you believe that all things should be free... and that's a whole other issue.

 

[janey]

What you want to hear is what you want to hear, like you said. You have already made a decision about it and won't deign to any other arguments....

Thank you for your excellent post.

Where did I say that? Where did I say anything about it being evil? I'd take more time to respond to your points if you didn't put silly words in my mouth... and what's more, I'm not going far at all, just putting forward a point of view which is generally lacking around here. And I'm quite calm about the whole thing, mainly because I have nothing to defend myself against.

Well, I guess you didn't really like the rest of that sentence. Cause that was in effect what you kept saying to me. Broke the law, broke the law, broke the law. For all you know, I could have purchased more music legally and gone to more concerts legally than you have in the past month, but because I was even so much as a member on OiNK I'm absolutely participating in illegal activities. No, whether or not I did is based on the content I torrented. Just merely being on oink has nothing to do with it. Just like oink itself was not actually illegal, just the stuff you could find using the site was. So really, it's not much more than a glorified Google.

And I'm not defending myself against anything except your uninformed opinions and replies about a site you've never been on (yes, I know, by choice).

And I have a tremendous respect for those who make a living by creating things — software, music, art, film, video, design, fashion — that people want to buy or own. And I believe that their interests should be protected and put far above those who want these things for absolutely nothing.

Okay, so what happens to those people inbetween. Which is like almost everyone except you and a select few here..?

 

[1020]

Originally Posted by The Article
I would have gladly paid a large monthly fee for a legal service as good as Oink - but none existed, because the music industry could never set aside their own greed and corporate ******** to make it happen.

Exactly where I find myself... but I'm prepared to still put my money where my mouth is. Maybe that's foolish, maybe that's blind... but I know it's the right thing for now.

I think most people do want to financially support artists, but don't like the idea of their hard-earned money going to some faceless executive's already-fat pockets instead. Plenty of artists have come out and said that they make very little from album sales and that most of the profits go to their labels, and I think people are seeing this as an opportunity to get music for free without feeling guilty about it.

 

[Blue Velvet]

I think most people do want to financially support artists, but don't like the idea of their hard-earned money going to some faceless executive's already-fat pockets instead.

There seems to be this universal assumption that everyone who isn't an artist but is in the industry is a faceless wealthy executive, which couldn't be futher from the truth.

And that's another thing: pirating the music that everyone says they like is not really hurting the fat cats anyway. If you want to stick it to the man, go and distribute the latest Britney Spears album or something equally popular...

 

[janey]

If you want to stick it to the man, go and distribute the latest Britney Spears album or something equally popular...

There is no discrimination when it comes to ripping music and putting it all over p2p networks. Britney Spears and some unknown band from the middle of nowhere can both peacefully coexist on some site like OiNK.

However, there is when it comes to people downloading them. If they don't want Britney, they don't download Britney. If they want unknown band from the middle of nowhere, they download unknown band from the middle of nowhere. And vice versa.

 

[Blue Velvet]

And at that suitable point, we'll put this thread on ice for now. Thanks for playing.