Persecution (sorry prosecution) of downloaders

I'm a little bit confused here, are you actually suggesting that people should be allowed to freely distribute copies of CDs via internet file-sharing systems or any other method?

The arugment is that sharing music is a reality that can't be made to go away by suing 12 year-old girls. And that it's in the best interest of the record industry to understand and embrace this situation than trying a strategy last employed by King Canute.

Matthew

I thought in the UK they are after the uploaders for placing things on to the net so going for the suppliers and not (yet) the users?

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are you actually suggesting that people should be allowed to freely distribute copies of CDs via internet file-sharing systems or any other method?

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In a way yes. I have quite a lot of downloaded music which I have aquired for a number of reasons. I also buy at least a couple of albums a week on average.

I believe music downloading for 99.99% of people is only a technology that has replaced taping LP's off your friends which everyone used to do (didn't they? Look in that old box of dusty C90s you've got stashed away). The rest of people who are a serious threat to the music industry should be dealt with at the markets/car boot sales they sell their counterfeit goods at.

It just smacks of hypocrisy to me. My opinions only.

Jonathan

PS Do the people pushing these cases through not have a box of home taped C90s

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Originally posted by Shayman:
A second related point. Is selling CDs second hand illegal. If not why can't you say you charged your filesharing mates 0.00000000001p per download. What would be the difference?
Jonathan

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The difference is that you retain the original. For your analogy to work you would sell a copy of a CD, not the original.

Just found the following on the BBC news website. Why do we keep getting told that the music industry is being decimated by downloading? That's all I really mean to ask. To me it seems one of those minor illegal acts like eating mince pies any other time than Christmas Day.



"UK singles' sales have risen for the first time in five years, music industry figures show.
The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) recorded a 6.4% rise in singles sales and 3.7% rise in album sales.

Sales across all music formats had a total value of £230m from April to June in the UK, compared to total sales of £221m in the same period last year."

Look I work in an industry whereby we derive our income from the licensing of rights to creative work also (in the visual field). If we don't stand up for the creators and copyright holders we represent then we are not not doing our job properly. It is broadly analagous to the licensing of music rights. Every recording I own has been bought and paid for. I feel good about that. Yes I can see myself buying an ipod at some point but only to transfer recordings that I already own. The argument about buying secondhand CD's being the same as illegally downloading music files is wrong as it is not illegal to sell secondhand legitimate recordings (after all someone has already paid the artist royalties in the purchase price). Ironically my industry is a very young one in terms of the average age (mostly around 25 or so) and I've noticed that the young people don't have the same attitudes or priorities when it comes to music. I think that for most of them music is merely a lifestyle accessory to fill up their ipods - "software".

Illegal downloading is no better than stealing a CD from a shop - it's theft of intellectual property and should be treated as such.

Mole Man

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The arugment is that sharing music is a reality that can't be made to go away by suing 12 year-old girls. And that it's in the best interest of the record industry to understand and embrace this situation than trying a strategy last employed by King Canute.

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Agreed.

Suing your customers doesn't seem like the best bit of customer relations either

Of course we should stand up for licensing rights, the thing is the music industry need to embrace the technology, not attempt the futile gesture of trying to kill it.

The only downloading I've done has been as a means of sampling something I intend to buy simply because the quality is incomparable, although I acccept there are many that don't do this.

The industry constantly tries to protect it's monopolistic position though - the attempts of those that try to be honest, yet also frugal are even being thwarted by the industry's attempts to shut down the likes of CD WOW etc.

They don't want you to download, they don't want you to buy either. They should make up their bloody minds.

I'd strongly support the artists, but have virtually no respect any longer for the industry, my personal involvements with it over the past year or two have demonstrated to me that the big record companies need a bloody big kick up the arse, and many don't deserve the customers they do have, such is the contempt they show them.

Am I the only one that thinks this way?

Andy.

[This message was edited by Andrew L. Weekes on Thu 07 October 2004 at 15:44.]

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Originally posted by Matthew Robinson:
The arugment is that sharing music is a reality that can't be made to go away by suing 12 year-old girls. And that it's in the best interest of the record industry to understand and embrace this situation than trying a strategy last employed by King Canute.

Matthew

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I must politely take issue with you there. It was last employed by the record industry! They're always doing this. What do we owe them and why is everything always our fault?

Cheers

Harry

I listened to an interview on Johnnie Walker (Radio 2) tonight on my way home from work. An American described the "12yo case" as follows :

"Would you ignore a 12yo that walked into a record store and stole over 100 CD's ? Her home PC had over 100 CD's worth of tracks that were obtained by file-sharing."

Whilst I think the record companies are resorting to pretty bizarre lengths to retain their stranglehold on copyright in order to satisfy their own greed, I felt he did have a valid point.......

Ross.

Copyright.

It is the intellectual theft that is being frowned upon. Not the actual plastic disc.

The record company / artist licence you a copy of the original when you buy the music with the permission to use but not share.

There have been arguments over actually making permissible backup copies of originals YOU OWN AND HAVE IN YOUR POSSESSION but having a copy without licence is what the cases are about.

Using an unlicenced copy denies the record companies sales and hence profits - that is their main fear.

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Originally posted by Andrew L. Weekes:
I'd strongly support the artists, but have virtually no respect any longer for the industry

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Hmm, how long before someone starts a campaign to recompense the artists directly for downloading their work, cutting out the industry?

You download a complete copy of an album via P2P, then send a donation / fee / royalty directly to the artist. How much does an artist earn in royalties from the purchase of a CD? A pound or two?

cheers, Martin

E-mail:- MartinPayne (at) Dial.Pipex.com. Put "Naim" in the title.

Ross,

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My point is that there is no such thing as intellectual theft unless you artificially give ideas the status of property, and in my opinion ideas should not be given that status.

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Not trying to be a prick (just curious what you think) but would you feel any different if you derived your livelihood from ideas -- programming code, composing music, or producing film, for example?

Joe

Those of you of a certain age may remember the industry slogan of 'Home taping is killing music' a while ago?

Well; it didn't - but life (and recorded sound) was somewhat different then. Yes; as an impoverished youth, I taped records, but the ones I really wanted - I bought. An eagerly awaited LP was so much more desirable then - you had something substantial in your hands, and sometimes some great art work as well.

And of course it sounded so much better.

The difference today is that the downloaded mp3/i-pod version of the genuine article sounds pretty bloody good and the kids don't seem to miss the inconsequential artwork and lyrics etc: with CD's. Furthermore; they are apparently not bothered about having a 'visible' music collection and the tactile experience of it.

The major lablels cannot (and is getting worse) afford to support the likes of a modern day Nick Drake whose first album sold about 5,000 copies in total.

Set against that; we have people producing very professional sounding albums on a home PC, but even to support their small production runs of indie artistes; it's gotta be paid for.

The future of commercially produced music will be very interesting.

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Yes I can see myself buying an ipod at some point but only to transfer recordings that I already own

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The record and film industries in the USA are pushing laws to make this illegal. You are having your rights and freedoms ripped from you while they cover up THEIR theft with smoke and mirrors about p2p etc. Don't forget that Hollywood itself only exists because people started producing films there to avoid 'intellectual property' restrictions on the east coast.
Ross is so right.

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Using an unlicenced copy denies the record companies sales and hence profits - that is their main fear.

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this is exactly the record companies' line and it's a complete load of sh*t. I used to download tracks from audiogalaxy. Using that wonderful feature "people who downloaded this, also liked this" I traced my way through to all sorts of new music. Had I relied purely on record company marketing or word of mouth then there is absolutely no way I would have discovered some of these groups and, therefore, the record industry would have had fewer sales.

Secondly, don't be mistaken about who would lose due to lost sales - artists make bugger all out of record sales.

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Originally posted by Martin Payne:

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Originally posted by Andrew L. Weekes:
I'd strongly support the artists, but have virtually no respect any longer for the industry

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Hmm, how long before someone starts a campaign to recompense the artists directly for downloading their work, cutting out the industry?

You download a complete copy of an album via P2P, then send a donation / fee / royalty directly to the artist. How much does an artist earn in royalties from the purchase of a CD? A pound or two?

cheers, Martin

E-mail:- MartinPayne (at) Dial.Pipex.com. Put "Naim" in the title.

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I agree completely with Andrew and Martin on this issue. Rightly or wrongly, I would happily rip off the record industry as they appear to have no scruples in ripping off the artists. I ´would however, feel uncomfortable, stealing the artist's royalty and if I was a downloader, then I would like to have the option of sending 2x the normal percentage to the performer.

I'm convinced that industry are sweating, not over the financial loss due to illegal downloads, but because of the potential for artists to record and sell by download direct to the consumer over t'internet. Once they lose control over manufacturing and distribution, then they lose everything.

As for twelve year old girls with 100 "stolen" albums, who can say she could afford to buy them legally anyway ? ie if she has no cash, she couldn't give it to the record co one way or the other - they see no loss.

The anecdotal evidence seems to be that the availability of downloads leads to a net increase in sales. Today's illegal downloader is tomorrows fifty quid man (or woman).

Brian OReilly

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Originally posted by Matthew Robinson:
The arugment is that sharing music is a reality that can't be made to go away by suing 12 year-old girls.
Matthew

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But selective prosecution for substantial damages from older (employed) downloaders and the parents of the teenagers would quickly have the desired effect I think.

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Yes I can see myself buying an ipod at some point but only to transfer recordings that I already own

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This is where my real current hate of the industry comes in; as has been pointed out, they don't even want you to do this.

It comes to something when I buy a bloody CD and can't even play the f***ing original in the car!!! WTF are these guys up to?

I have an MP3-playing car CD unit, and theoretically it's illegal for me to convert the material I've already paid royalty fees on to mp3 format to play in the car. This is crazy. One then finds the CD is copy protected, so I can't even play the original!

Now this isn't the focus of the current BPI legal actions, these are aimed at certain individuals sharing a large number of files, but by turning paying customers like me into potential criminals, preventing me from using the music I've actually paid for and then being downright rude, arrogant, unresponsive when you try to approach them if one has problems (with copy-protected CD's, for example) thay do nothing but alienate their customers, the very people who keep them in business.

None of the above is to decry the root problem though. I listened to Bonnie Raitt in an interview a while back, she does a lot of work helping all those early musicians, to whom we owe much of our musical heritage, get support from the industry, in terms of basic medical provision and pensions etc. Many early contracts were downright exploitative and many musicians didn't receive a penny in royalties from some great work we still love today. The same thing could happen if the mp3 file sharing scene is allowed to expand in the way it is now. I heard in a recent radio program that the average earnings for a musician are in the order of £10k a year, hardly a life of luxury.

There has to be a way to allow the artists to be paid for their work, I just don't feel the current round of legal actions, both here and in the US, is the way to go about it. The simple fact is unless you tackle every source, the problem will not go away, you might scare a few people, but the majority won't take a blind bit of notice.

It's been a problem for years, there was the early 'home taping is killing music' campaigns, then the panics over recordable digital formats (DCC, Minidisc, DAT) and the latest panic over DVD duplication. The latter has become so easy and so ridiculously cheap, it's becoming commonplace.

There was a campaign in the days of taping to add a royalty levy to blank tapes, to help offset the loss of revenue. This was met with strong opposition from campaigning and disabled groups, for example, since it penalised those who utilised tapes for legitimate means (like audio books, newspapers etc.).

What was plainly evident though was at it's height, of the several million blank tapes sold in the UK, the greater proportion where NOT used by blind people to record messages on, they were used for music. It's very un-British, seemingly turning innocent people into 'criminals', (innocent until proven guilty etc.) but I personally thought it was probably the best and only practical route forward.

This did happen with blank CDR's for audio, and whilst some complain at the cost of the audio CDR discs, the reality is most of us don't mind paying a modest amount extra. Does any of this money actually reach the artists though?

So, what's the solution for the electronic transfer? It's obviously much harder to add a levy to a source you don't have control over, so maybe a levy or surcharge on the devices used is a route forward? The problem with this is you'd need to apply it to items which the greater proportion of people ARE using legitimately, like PC's, hard drives and memory devices. The other problem is even if you stuck to levying dedicated devices, like iPod's, how do you quantify the volume of music that may pass through it in a lifetime. Could you charge an annual licensing fee?

It's a very difficult problem and I'm not unsympathetic to the plight of the musicians, but position of the industry currently is largely one of its own making, in my view.

How do you pay an artist for the use of their material?

It would be interesting to hear from people like Fred Simon and especialy other musicians within the more mainstream industry, who obviously have actual experience - do they feel their interests are being served by the industry's current actions?

Is the industry just shitting itself as it potentially becomes become redundant?

What is plainly evident is that the bulk of the population will NOT pay up voluntarily, witness the recent history of electronically downloadable books, for example.

Andy.

[This message was edited by Andrew L. Weekes on Fri 08 October 2004 at 10:03.]

"So, what's the solution for the electronic transfer?"

Exactly the same as the current solution for radio -- levy a fee via the suppliers (i.e. broadband ISPs, who pass it on to us) that grants the right to free, ulimited copying of all digital music.

When you do the math it basically works out that you can have unlimited legal downloads for $6US a month and everyone still gets paid.

Also it's going to get *much* worse for the record companies very soon when all our iPods get some kind of bluetooth/wireless and you can share with people on the tube into work. In a few years time you'll have a 200GB iPod that will fill itself up with tens of thousands of songs for nothing just by walking around with it switched on.

See here for more.

Matthew

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Exactly the same as the current solution for radio -- levy a fee via the suppliers (i.e. broadband ISPs, who pass it on to us) that grants the right to free, ulimited copying of all digital music.

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An interesting proposition. The only real problem with this is will the end users pay the fee?

If we asssume the cost translates pound for dollar, then that means my broadband access costs rise by around 30%, which by anyone's measure is a lot, especially if I don't utilise the 'features' I'm paying for, I just wonder how many would accept it?

Broadband takeup is wider than it's ever been, but it's plainly evident that the current cost levels are an issue to many, hence the multitude of low-cost, cut-down services; a rise would likely have a significant impact on this, I'd have thought.

It would have to be statutory across the world, for it to work.

As you say though, wireless will make it totally uncontrollable.

Andy.

Which would you rather pay, £20 a month for ADSL as is, or £25 a month for ADSL + access to any piece of music you want whenever you want?

I don't think it's a hard sell. And broadband costs are falling anyway.

An interesting side effect. The $6/m scheme guarantees record companies and artists renumeration at the historically highest level. They can, however, continue to sell CDs -- for those who want a physical object, sleeves, etc. Given they have already got their intelletual property cash from the downloaders, this is all gravy and I suspect the price would come down to reflect the true marginal cost of CDs. £3 per CD will still allow mahoosive profits.

Don't agree it needs to be worldwide either as, like with the current radio arrangements, you just do the same deal separaretly in each major country. Also the fact that intellectual property rights for music basically do not exists in, say, Vietnam has hardly prevented the record labels making a fortune in the US and western Europe.

Matthew

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Originally posted by Matthew Robinson:
Which would you rather pay, £20 a month for ADSL as is, or £25 a month for ADSL + access to any piece of music you want whenever you want?
Matthew

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I'd go for the latter. But my problem would be (as it always has been) that £4.99 of would go the the industry with the artists getting the remainder.

I've always believed that the more you share the more you buy. But that's just me.

Cheers

Harry

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Originally posted by Matthew Robinson:
Which would you rather pay, £20 a month for ADSL as is, or £25 a month for ADSL + access to any piece of music you want whenever you want?

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An elegant suggestion.

Mike

Viable if the consumer has a choice. Why should I, who has no interest in downloading music, subsidise those who do?

Bob