[niggle]

But if I'm going to buy the album legally, I'd rather have the CD, the artwork AND the digital files, rather than just the digital files alone. CD lifespan = 100 years. My harddrive lifespan = 5?

You've got a good point there - if the industry wants people to buy CDs instea dof downloading, CDs need to offer something that downloading doesn't and which makes it worthwhile buying them - artwork, videos, whatever.

[Rik]

my cds are boxed up in the loft. bored of that shit sitting around.

No matter what you do.. even unplug teh internets.. kids will copy music. The industry has to live with that happily or no. Any attempts to stop it are just pissing in the wind.

flooding the filesharing sites with crap is probably their best option as things are... which i am sure they're very busy doing.

[d*d]

I used to have a comprehensive collection of 'stolen' music on cassette - I remember we used to all chip in on an album and then make copies for everyone - some lucky bastard would get to keep the original there was probably a fair and democratic way this was decided at the time, can't remeber it now though

[Dusteh]

I think they would just be happy with sales full stop at the moment, regardless of format.

Home entertainment has changed significantly since the 70's. There's Sky TV, DVDs, computer games, social networks on the internet. Music is now something people have on in the background whilst they are doing something else thanks to cheap mp3/cd players (the ipod revolution). Actually listening to music, as in sitting down and doing nothing apart from listening to the record you brought home - that just doesn't happen on the scale it used to. I think buying music was more of an event in the past, when a stereo was a hulking great thing and a vinyl record had to be handled with care. I still sit down, put the stereo on high and just listen - but I have to make time to do so and I expect I'm in a minority. I think it is a shame that so much music these days is consumed sitting in front of a computer through shoddy headphones and 192kbps mp3s. People don't know what they are missing.

Of course music was on the decline before mp3s came along. Because walkman tape players and cheap blank tapes made music disposable and easier than it ever had been.

Going back to the incorrect pricing of digital, taking the new Autechre album as an example. To buy the FLAC version on bleep.com = £8.99

To buy the CD on Amazon (including shipping) = £6.69

Of course people are going to steal digital files.

[Rik]

i am a hi-fi-led-meditation-booze-junkie who is in cold turkey.

bloody kids ruin everything.

[Bill Posters]

Originally Posted by Dusteh

If I choose to download the Thinner back catalog from soulseek, is my ISP going to send me a nasty letter? It is heavy-handed, ill thought-out and there is going to be a nasty mess and some ISP's being taken to court by users I expect.

Most reputable ISPs prohibit the use of the leased net connection for illegal purposes, reserving the right to limit or cut the net provision to that customer if the Ts&Cs are broken.

That being the case, the users will have already signed up to that agreement, givin them a very weak position from which to argue their case - even if they go for the 'invasion of privacy' angle.
It's quite probably that laws already exist - or users have already waived that particular privacy by agreeing to the Ts&Cs - allowing ISPs to monitor the activity of users to varying levels of detail. Otherwise, how else would they be able to enforce their own Ts&Cs?

Additionally, it's doubtful that the Data Protection Act prevents ISPs from checking for illegal activity and/or passing details of transgressors onto those seeking to enforce the law or seeking to exercise the rights afforded them by the law.

ISPs are rarely stupid and generally have decent enough lawyers able to put together Ts&Cs which protect them quite well.

Who here can honestly say that they read the ISP's Ts&Cs in full before signing up? I'll wager very few.


Regarding heavy-handed…

Consider we live in some future world where music is a 'reasonable' price and everyone who would pay a reasonable price does so and doesn't download illegally.
Now consider that there are still a section of society who refuse to pay for anything which they can obtain freely.

What action, if any, should be taken against those remaining downloaders?

What course of punitive action would you consider to be acceptible - i.e. not heavy-handed?


Now, consider that we're back in today's world. How does the industry tell the 'would pay if it was cheap enough' consumers from the 'why pay when I can get it for free' consumers?

It's unlikely the industry will be going after those who've downloaded the odd album here and there, but rather those who, even at half the price, couldn't afford to buy the music they've collected through downloading - to the point where they've shown such disregard for the law, that it's clear they're not 'reluctantly' downloading music due to a lack of reasonably-priced alternative options, but willfully taking advantage of the ease with which music can be illegally obtained.

[Dusteh]

You seem to have missed my point. It is perfectly legal to download the Thinner back catalog via soulseek (thinner netlabel), or any other net label who give away their releases. How will the ISP know the difference between music released freely into the public domain and illegal sharing?

So if I am accused of illegally fielsharing, and have my connection cut-off - but then go to court and show that all my music I downloaded is legal. What are they going to do?

It seems to me they are assuming p2p activity is illegal, or are they checking every file you share? I can't see how they possibly can. Unless they only go for people sharing popular new releases, ie; target users by keywords? In which case a large proportion of 'underground' music filesharing will go unpunished?

It is the logistics of fairly enforcing this that baffle me.

[niggle]

What action, if any, should be taken against those remaining downloaders?

How about taking the same action against them that's taken against people who break the speed limit?

Or who park illegally?

Or who play music at parties without a PRS license?

[top_buzz]

People from the labels will connect to the tracker serving the torrent and from there be able to see all the downloaders ip address. They'll look up what isp the ip belongs to then contact the isp saying they want the name/address of the person the ip belonged to.

So they'll know what you were downloading that way.

[Bill Posters]

Originally Posted by niggle

So, you admit that it's not a price issue.

We know that record sales are in the toilet and getting worse.

You admit that sales are dropping independent of downloading.

So where's the "crime" in this? If downloading has nothing to do with falling sales and doesn't damage revenue, what harm is it doing that needs to be prosecuted?

I suggest you read what's being said more carefully.

Firstly, no-one said it had nothing to do with falling sales or that it doesn't damage revenue. It is extremely likely that labels have indeed lost out in sales to the tune of many millions of dollars/pounds because of illegal downloads.

Secondly, no-one said it wasn't a price issue. It is extremely likely that many (though I suspect a minority of the files uploaded/downloaded) were downloaded because the consumer simply couldn't afford to buy the music.


As for 'where's the crime?'…

Music isn't free, at least, not the music under discussion here.
Music is an author creation protected by copyright.

If I happen to think your work is worthless, should that give me the right to use it without paying for it? It wouldn't cost you a penny directly.

I was (hypothetically) never likely to commission you to do any design work, so I was never going to be a source of income for you.
So, do I take it that you wouldn't object if I plundered your design/code for anything worth having and used it myself without either thanks or payment?

After all, it's not going to effect your bottom line, so where's the crime?

Ta.

[urban1977]

Bring back the cassette tape and drive to your mates house and copy stuff using high speed dubbing!

Sing along chip monk style while you wait!

[Dusteh]

But what about Rapidshare or Soulseek? No IP address to trace there.

[Bill Posters]

Originally Posted by Dusteh

You seem to have missed my point. It is perfectly legal to download the Thinner back catalog via soulseek (thinner netlabel), or any other net label who give away their releases. How will the ISP know the difference between music released freely into the public domain and illegal sharing?

I did indeed miss your point (not knowing that Thinner made their music available freely). Similarly, you seemed to have missed one which I made earlier about how ISP might be given the info to target.

[urban1977]

artists can bypass the record companies and sell their music online for 100% of the proceeds!

screw record companies let the internet rule

[Bill Posters]

Originally Posted by niggle

How about taking the same action against them that's taken against people who break the speed limit?

Or who park illegally?

Or who play music at parties without a PRS license?

Do I take it you have nothing relevant or constructive to offer as an answer to the question I asked?

[weldo]

Originally Posted by Stickman

Only steal from rich bands.

thats the truth ...

its amazing how new bands are happy to give stuff away and build a fanbase, whereas U2s manager wants to prosecute downloaders, just because he'd quite like another castle ...

[Dusteh]

Yes I saw your point Bill about ID3 tags, but this kind of file recognition is easily avoided through rar archives of music, shared through fileshare sites such as rapidshare... or by using FLAC instead of mp3.

I think you are correct that high-bandwidth suspicious users would probably be flagged up. But can you imagine ISP's really bothering to expend resources to use a human to investigate, or in reality don't you think their automated system will more likely send a nasty letter anyway?

This is what I meant by heavy-handed. I am all for punishing people stealing music, but I think this method is going to throw up false-positives and cause alot of trouble for both users and ISP's.

[urban1977]

@Bill Posters

Good point about taking design work without paying for it. This applies to everyting.

I like your car
I like your identity
I like your music

[Hunch]

The problem that industry (not the record industry per se) as a whole has is that there is a generation of young people growing up now who have got used to getting way too much for free. The cat is out of the bag and it's not going back.

Various people in this thread have made the comment that if you provide something that people want, they will buy it legally. I'd suggest you go and check out the iPhone app store. The average price of the downloadable software there (some of which is pretty decent and useful) is about 3 quid. Yet, there are plenty of comments in the reviews section saying "nah... don't think I want to pay 2.50 for this, I'll wait until the phone is jailbroken and download it for free." It's two-fucking-quid-fifty for christ's sake. And this is from someone who has just bought a phone for which they've agreed to shell out at least a thousand quid over the next year or two, so they're not poverty stricken.

When sites like logosauce came along offering logo design for $200, there was all sorts of whining on this site (which fortunately seems to have died down) about how 'you get what you pay for' and 'it's too cheap to get anything decent', when in fact reading the feedback, practically all their customers have all gone away very happy with the service and the quality of the results. Oli himself pointed out at the beginning of this thread pointed out that if you offer a service at a price people want to pay, it's a good result. And yet when the chickens come home to roost in the design industry (the previously mentioned 'logo at a price people want to pay') suddenly it's not appealing any more.

What annoys me about the music industry debate, is not so much the heavy handed tactics of the record companies themselves. I don't necessarily agree with them, but that's by the by. What really gets my goat is the amount of utter hypocrisy spouted by people when they discuss the issues. It's fine to deprive someone of the money they're legally entitled to for their work, until it happens to be you.

"When it comes to digital contents, someone stealing your product doesn't actually cost you a cent." - great, in that case I think I won't bother designing anything new. I'll just go to your portfolios and start ripping off your designs. You never would have met my clients anyway, so you wouldn't ever have got the jobs I get, so you're not losing a dime. Easy life for me, no loss for you.

[Dusteh]

I think the problem is that there is the real fear of privacy invasion and wrongful punishment. But hiding behind that you have the people who are taking music for nothing, and use the real fears as a smoke screen.

Afterall there is a massive debate across the whole internet about the BPI being evil - but you don't get such a large following in the anti-ID card campaign.

I think many of the people who shout about how amazing the digital revolution is (and I'm not talking about anyone in this thread) - are the ones who are abusing it.