Downloading music free from the internet: Is it wrong?

[Bonzo77]

The evidence is clear.. Despite illegal downloads of films and music the companies that produce them are making record profits (pun intended). AFAIK no company has folded directly as a result of illegal downloading and the jobs are still as secure as they always were.

 

Modern Cd and DVD production should have made the cost of those items cheaper but it didn't as those reduced costs were not passed on. Not only that, the companies changed from vinyl to CD and VHS to DVD and now blu-ray so people had to pay again for a new format when the already had purchased the item.

 

The blame for pirating is down to corporate greed as the companies wont reduce the costs to the consumer when they could, and would still make a hefty profit.

 

But still, if a musician makes a record, they want people to buy their record. Not download it for free.

[stereolab]

Cnet/download.com is one of the main sites that did this, guess what sort of company owns it? yes one of those that supported SOPA.

 

Other big entertainment companies such as disney, and even microsoft promoted Cnet downloads, those top downloads being promoted? kazaa, bittorrent etc etc. This has been going on for a LONG time.

 

Go do some research yourself, you might learn something about the world.

 

So your claim is that they simultaneously promote piracy at the same time as trying to close it down?

 

How do Disney promote piracy for example?

[shims]

AFAIK no company has folded directly as a result of illegal downloading and the jobs are still as secure as they always were.

Nonsense. When it is no longer viable for labels to maintain their release schedule due to cash-flow problems, when labels and distributors fold and when people who worked for labels go looking for other employment it's pretty clear what's going on.

 

Modern Cd and DVD production should have made the cost of those items cheaper but it didn't as those reduced costs were not passed on. Not only that, the companies changed from vinyl to CD and VHS to DVD and now blu-ray so people had to pay again for a new format when the already had purchased the item.

People don't have to do anything of the sort! It's still perfectly viable to play records after all.

[shims]

Exactly, artists seem richer than they've ever been.

 

You've already been shown why this sort of claim makes little sense. The fact that you haven't realised by yourself isn't that impressive. The fact that you haven't even read the thread you started and picked up on the reason why it makes little sense is even less impressive.

 

There's no evidence that, overall, these downloads affect even record companies.

Lost sales = no effect on a business. That's quite a serious bypass of logic!

[XXTickerXX]

Lost sales = no effect on a business. That's quite a serious bypass of logic!

 

They are not lost sales if they were not going to buy in the first place.A download doesn`t mean a lost sale however the industry wants to wrap it up and tell you.

 

There are studies out there that tell you pirates are the biggest spenders of digital content that are obviously suppressed.

 

In the Netherlands,Spain and Switzerland its legal to download/fileshare films/tv/games/music for personal use because they deem it not detrimental to the industries.Switzerland had there own senate investigate it.

 

http://www.reghardware.com/2011/12/05/swiss_insist_piracy_is_no_harm_to_copyright_owners/

 

The laws are not going to make the slightest difference to profits.We are living in a mostly zero-sum market where consumers are maxed out on buying discretionary media.The music market is competing with games,films etc for the same discretionary pounds that are ever tighter to come by due to rising bills.

The three strike rule brought in France is trumpeted to have reduced file sharing where the truth is the I2P anonymous network doubled in size overnight.

If laws are brought in britain to force ISP`s to track torrents its just going to make VPN`s in russia nice and rich and the average user will get savvy pretty quickly turning to I2P,TOR,VPN`s etc.

 

What if they punish the owner of the connection would that be fair?

I can get through a WEP key router in 10 minutes and i`m pretty crap on a computer compared to a lot.People would still download using internet cafes and such.

 

I never “watch” downloaded movies or listen to downloaded music.I’m a scientist studying the “behavior” of bittorrent protocols for a research paper I’m currently developing (freelance).

[onewheeldave]

 

 

Lost sales = no effect on a business. That's quite a serious bypass of logic!

 

Depends if the lost sales from people not buying because of downloading illegally, exceeds the lost sales from people who woudn't mind paying, but refuse to 'buy' a product that is inferior to the illegal copies.

 

i.e. a lot of people resent buying a dvd which, in addition to the movie they want to watch, has various anti-pirate ads, trailers and a liberal dose of UOP's

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_operation_prohibition

 

whereas a decent rip will have all the UOPs removed and will probably be in a movie format which plays better than the DVD- despite which, it will also be free.

 

The majority of 'anti-piracy' measures, techniques and gadgets, not only do not diminish piracy, as a side-effect they cause sufficent unnecessary hassle to legitimate users, that many of them will end up switching to pirate copies, simply cos they're not riddled with anti-piracy measures/UOP's.

[stereolab]

I do agree with onewheeldave about anti-piracy measures on bought media - Its actually pretty insulting to people who have bought a DVD to force them to watch a trailer about how evil it is to download for free. Imagine if every time you bought something in a shop, instead of saying 'Thank You', the cashier gave you a stern lecture almost implying that suspect you probably wanted to steal it, before letting you leave.

 

However, I disagree that this is a major driver for piracy - its annoying yes, and I think its got better in recent years - but I suspect most people tolerate the 30 seconds or so it takes to watch them - after all - we happily wait through ad breaks when watching TV.

 

It would be nice to stop targetting legitimate users though.

[Tony]

Tony, what do you for a living?

 

Dont be so bloody impertinent.

 

Silly boy, you appear to be either trolling or stalking me.

 

Anyway, the answer to that post #2 is that Forumosaurus / you / me charge for our efforts. The intervening hundred posts or so make any further comment pointless.

 

Do you have anything useful to add to your pointless troll?

[stereolab]

I'm not totally against piracy - what I am against are the pathetic and circular excuses that are rolled out whenever the topic comes up.

 

- 'They make enough money anyway', implies that you are wilfully depriving them of some income by taking a free copy - yet at the same time claiming that you wouldn't have bought it anyway - which implies you aren't - it can't be both.

 

- 'They're all millionaires with TV deals' - totally wrong - only a few high profile bland commercial artists are able to do this - most musicians struggle to make more than a normal office job - and probably only for a few years (when they end up in that office job!)

 

- 'Prices are too high' - yet there appears to be no price which is low enough to compete with free - is £1.27 for an album too high? (that's what I just paid for a White Stripes CD including postage from Amazon). Name a price you'd be happy to pay then.

 

- 'DRM is too restrictive' - not really true any more as no major seller uses it - this leads people to jump to the next argument

 

- 'I want it in [insert obscure audio format here] / I need it at 320kbps etc' - very nice that your hearing is so perfect it can distinguish sounds that no other human is capable of - if it matters so much, buy it on CD and rip it yourself.

 

- 'Its all crap anyway not worth buying these days!' - but its worth stealing? You are forcing yourself to steal music you hate for the hell of it then are you?

 

'Its not available legally on CD/mp3/vinyl' - what so this gives you the right to download it illegally anyway? (This one was my own excuse for downloading old reggae albums!)

 

'Its out on torrents weeks before officially being released' - so impatience is a good reason to steal something?

 

When I download from blogs or torrents I do so with the clear intention of getting something I otherwise wouldn't have had for free - I try not to, and spend lots of money on CDs and DVDs too. I'm not really interested in stopping people from downloading what they want - lets just not use these pathetic excuses anymore ok?

[alchresearch]

They are not lost sales if they were not going to buy in the first place.A download doesn`t mean a lost sale however the industry wants to wrap it up and tell you.

 

I don't understand that logic.

 

If they didn't want it enough to buy it in the first place, why would they go to the effort to download it?