Originally posted by solvs
Is listening to the radio wrong? Is watching MTV (at least when they actually play music)? Then why is it wrong to download a song you want to listen to a couple of times?
The radio station pays a fee to ASCAP and Henry Fox Agency (the RIAA "front" agency for handling disbursment of replay fees to copyright holders) or the individual label promoting the song if that label is not one of the five RIAA labels. MTV does the same. In exchange for this fee, they have a license to broadcast (broadcast == make available to multiple parties).
I seriously doubt that the gnutella user you are downloading from is paying ASCAP a broadcast fee or has a license to distribute said music. I further doubt that you have the same license when you are broadcasting said music to anyone that asks on gnutella (or whichever music network is your favorite). That is why downloading music is different.
I've bought hundreds of CDs and cassettes over the years. Some of them for one or 2 songs. Then they sit on the shelf collecting dust.
Solution 1: sell them to a used CD store or collector.
Solution 2: learn to be a bit more demanding in what music you buy. If a CD with 2 "good" songs is not worth $15 or so, don't buy it, and wait until you know the CD has enough songs you like before handing over your hard-earned money!
Personally, I tend to enjoy the "off" tracks of an album - those that would never make it on radio - far more than the "hit singles". So of course any CD purchase is a guessing game as to what is going to be worth it and what is not. But having been at it for a few (
) years, I've found many ways to increase my chances of buying CDs I'll like, from talking with friends to reading reviews online. As a result, I've spent probably $200 on CDs in the past year, and I'd value my years' collection as worth far more to me than that.
You know it's not illegal to make someone a compilation cassette of songs you like. Your not selling it to them. THAT"S illegal.
Actually, making someone a compilation cassette is not handled by "fair use" and is a copyright violation (which is illegal). It has been ignored by the recording industry for so long one could make the case that lack of enforcement has given the impression that it is an allowed practice, however.
No money has to change hands for a copyright violation to occur. When money changes hands, you enter into the criminal instead of civil litigation realm, but either way you are still talking about a violation of someone else's copyright, and hence an illegal act (copyright law is established in the US Constitution; this is not a "minor" ill-considered law).
When I want a song, but have to pay $15-$21 to listen to it, that's outrageous.
Solution 1: Don't buy it.
Solution 2: Learn to like music you can afford.
Dude, it's freakin
entertainment! It's not an inalienable right! If you can't afford to buy every CD the day it comes out, then you need to learn how to either make more money or how to live without all the latest CDs spinning in your mega changer!
Solution 3 (being generous): wait until the songs you
really like are all put together on a "year's best" compilation CD. I mean, if you just really like the "hits" then I see no reason other than insatiable impatience to buy whole CDs at all. Just wait until the 2 "good" songs on each of the 25 CDs you would have bought that year are put onto 2-3 compilation discs and buy them instead. (ob. Mac relationship: then spend the money you "saved" on a new iPod!)
Especially when the artist is making pennies from it.
Sounds like the artist made a bad deal. And I do agree that there is a whole industry out there built on blindsiding naive hopefuls, but "sharing" music doesn't fix anything. Like if you go to a restaurant and get really good service but find out the waitress makes next to nothing, you don't solve anything by skipping out without paying. If you really feel the artist is getting a raw deal, buy the CD from the recording company if you want it (or skip it altogether if the product isn't worth your money), then send the artist a check as a "tip".
I could buy the single, but that's even worse. $6 for a song I've heard on the radio a million times, and some B-side crap.
Again, if the song isn't worth the money for which the store is selling it, DON'T BUY IT!
That still doesn't give you the right to violate copyright.
And my computers are my CD players. They have better speakers. My home CD player won't even play a lot of this stuff that's put out with copy protection, and I rarely use it. But I don't want my PC to freak out because someone has decided I can't listen to their music on what I want to use. So what do I do? I download the song from someone who broke the copy protection.
Solution 1: Don't buy copy-protected music.
Solution 2: If you buy music that is copy-protected, return it as "defective" (which it is, if it was labeled with the Compact Disk Audio" trademark; all current copy protection schemes violate the terms of that trademark label).
Or just played it in a regular CD player, and hooked it up to the line in on their PC.
I'm not saying stealing music is right. And definitely selling bootlegs is wrong. But to listen to a song for awhile, then to just let it sit there taking up hard drive space. Or to download something live or rare, or that you could hear on the radio all the time, don't call me a thief. The Record Companies are thieves. I'm not stealing music to sell it and take the $$$ from the artist. If I'm going to buy a CD, I will.
First, copyright violation is not theft in any legal sense of the word, and the RIAA's "pirates" campaign is misguided to say the least. If you can listen to a song on the radio any time, then you don't need it on your computer, do you? And if the song is just sitting on your drive unplayed, there's no reason not to just delete it, is there?
Someone's got to buy the CD in the first place to put it out there.
Yeah, that's a consolation. 1 CD @ $15 - 1 CD Production Costs @ $1Million min ... almost an even break, that is!
