RIAA vs. hackers WAR?

[Vesayen]

I never really liked pirating software or music......

To be honest I NEVER listen to music, just dosent really interest me, but I would never download it anyway because I thought it was immoral.....

3 months ago I still felt that wat.....

HOWEVER......

The RIAA's conductis so DISRACEFULL that I would have no moral quams at this point downloading pirated music(cept I dont like music heh).

[mrmitchell]

What if by selling those works, you earned a source of income that was taking a hit, perhaps even a severe hit,

Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention. If anything, pirating generates sales. Were it not for P2P, I would have no access to music aside from the few times a day I get away from my computer, and I wouldn't've been introduced to a few new bands. Part of the Big Five (RIAA major members) problem is that all their talent has been milked, and now, smaller, better talent from smaller, less-sleazy labels is getting through and they can't help that the grass is greener in the smaller lawn.

Without the internet, I wouldn't've been introduced to that talent, and I probably wouldn't've bought ANY of it, small label or big, at all.

Also, it's fair enough to say that a lot of music downloaders would not have bought the CD anyways. So it's like cheap marketing for the industry when 500 guys that wouldn't have had it are telling other people that it's good.

In layman's terms, the industry is full of greedy jackasses.

[Whaleboy]

What if by selling those works, you earned a source of income that was taking a hit, perhaps even a severe hit

As well as what mrmitchell said, its just business, dynamics of the market, affecting the pool of potential consumers (not walking into a shop and stealing a cd), are what businesses have to either cope with, or be killed by.

[gunkulator]

So following the logic that copying a thing and giving it away is not stealing, the following must also be OK:

1) Giving away a free version Windows or another of piece of software.
2) Scanning and sending out copies of Harry Potter or any other book.
3) Videotaping a movie and putting it online for all to see.

Presumably this won't hurt a soul and any lost revenue can more than be made up for by, say, J.K. Rowling going on tour and reading her book aloud for an audience - huge market potential there, right? The guys who write the Oxford English Dictionary may be a bit hardpressed, though. And hey, who wouldn't like to see a live version of The Matrix? Surely, that would be a cinch to pull off.

Noone likes the stealing analogy because apparently, stealing must involve a physical thing. How about this then: I copy the movie tickets you just bought and use them to get into the movie. Nothing wrong there because I haven't actually "stolen" anything. Oh, and I'll make the grandiose claim that I wouldn't have gone without the freebie so no lost sales. According to the new model, if I liked the movie I drop off a couple bucks at the end or something.

[Whaleboy]

1) Giving away a free version Windows or another of piece of software.
2) Scanning and sending out copies of Harry Potter or any other book.
3) Videotaping a movie and putting it online for all to see

Yes, yes and yes (although practically, those wont be major concerns for years). The publishing industry has been living on borrowed time since the renaissance. As soon as there is a means of separating information for the method of deployment (books, tapes, cds etc), then the information essentially becomes subject to the laws of economics in computing.

While materialistically, the actual media are finite resources, in IT, resources like disk, bandwidth etc, are perceived, for all intents and purposes as infinite resources.

This is of course something the publishing and recording industries have to cope with, no doubt they can, as physical media-based stuff has a number of advantages, and of course, record companies make much of their money through selling merchandise anyway!!

So, yes, stealing, by definition, involves either a physical thing, or a private thing (only in private domain (like my desk or my harddisk), not released in public, public display or public availability. Stealing therefore, does no apply to music which is released to the public.

It needn't hurt a soul if the record companies are willing to adapt to it, for example, selling reduced-price cds with merchandise, or offering streaming media that you pay for, and even embracing the file sharing ideology, possibly by selling a p2p system that is superior to the free ones (although the OSS hackers will have something to say about that ).

[Soul Survivor]

there are already tons of books online (not scanned but typed out) and its the same thing with cds..... i could just print out the pages from the book, but if it is good i would rather own it for myself

[Whaleboy]

do you mean project gutenberg?

[gunkulator]

Originally posted by elijah

then the information essentially becomes subject to the laws of economics in computing.

Computing and networking for distribution do not live in a vacuum. The same technology that allows you to find a thing and copy it, allows law enforcement to watch you do it. A good hacker may stay one step ahead, but the arms race will none-the-less claim victims. Basically you are sacreficing your privacy for access to information. The part that is disturbing to me is that innocent bystanders have to put up with more and more draconian rules and less and less privacy because a few bad apples are getting their kicks thumbing their noses at big corporations.

So, yes, stealing, by definition, involves either a physical thing, or a private thing (only in private domain (like my desk or my harddisk), not released in public, public display or public availability. Stealing therefore, does no apply to music which is released to the public.

You are misusing the term "release to the public." When Chevy releases the new S-10 to the public it means a different thing than when the new version of Kazaa is released to the public.

In any case, I can claim that stealing a 5 cent piece of bubblegum is such a vanishingly small loss as to be practically zero. Best of all, I'm not likely to get caught. And oh, I wouldn't have bought the gum If I had to pay so I was never a potential customer. Still OK? The physicallity of a thing seems secondary to the ease in which a thing can be taken.

It needn't hurt a soul if the record companies are willing to adapt to it, for example, selling reduced-price cds with merchandise, or offering streaming media that you pay for, and even embracing the file sharing ideology, possibly by selling a p2p system that is superior to the free ones (although the OSS hackers will have something to say about that ).

No, I suspect the opposite. They will embrace encryption, specialized players and the equivalent of click through licenses to make listening to music akin to signing a contract. Contract law is harder to argue yourself out of if you were a willing partner. Meanwhile, TPTB will continue to lobby the gov't for less privacy and more open-ended auditing.

Maybe the so-called underground of free music will flourish and we can all enjoy not paying a cent for an artist's blood, sweat and tears. Regardless of the fairness of that, if the free music world fails, I think we can all expect to see a lot more of big brother on our computer and in our lives.

[Soul Survivor]

bah! people still don't understand.... its the record companies that lose 90% of the money not the artists

yes its stealing, but you can't compare it to stealing candy. by downloading the song you're not making it impossible for someone else to buy it, if you steal a candy bar its a direct loss because no one else will be able to buy that candy bar - and thus the store which paid for the candy bar loses the money they spent on the candy bar plus what they would have gotten by selling it.

with music its different, by downloading it the record companies take no direct loss, they did not lose x dollars the moment you downloaded the song, nor have you removed all possibility that that song will be sold again.

[gunkulator]

Originally posted by Soul Survivor

yes its stealing, but you can't compare it to stealing candy. by downloading the song you're not making it impossible for someone else to buy it, if you steal a candy bar its a direct loss because no one else will be able to buy that candy bar - and thus the store which paid for the candy bar loses the money they spent on the candy bar plus what they would have gotten by selling it.

Yes, but having working in retail, let me assure you that stores never expect to sell everything. In fact, you want your store to have a "full" look. Much of a store's merchandise is simply sent back unsold. This is especially true of food items, items with limited shelf life or items that you choose to no longer sell.

Again I will point out that most thieves a) would not buy the item anyway and b) are merely reducing by 1 the number of items that get returned.

nor have you removed all possibility that that song will be sold again.

But you've greatly reduced the chance of another sale. At some point critical mass is achieved when people's access to file sharing will make music sales almost non-existance. Why buy the cow when the milk is free?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Pekka
One of the very corner stones of defending CDs high prices back in the day was that it's better technology and that the prices will drop. It was promised, that because of the producing is basically not that tough, and it doesn't cost that much to produce CDs as in copying CDs, that it will ultimately drop, the price that is. It was supposed to happen in few years. The prices has only gotten higher. How is this possible?

Good point.

When you look at VCDs and DVDs, they have been dropping in prices, while music CDs have been going up in price.

Some may argue that VCDs/DVDs are just a secondary market for movies, they are right. Consider that, however, movies are a whole lot more expensive to make than an album - Jackie Chan is now at US$25m, and he's not the most expensive. I don't think it takes 25m, or even 5m, to make an album. Sure, there's advertising costs, but so do films.

Consumers are not blind and stupid. They know who are ripping them off.

[Pekka]

YEs cunsomers know waht happens.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Pekka
Then they need to attack companies that makes mp3players. They make money and benefit from 'illegal' activities the most, and they know it. The exploit the situation. All these folks, they are making big business, so maybe that's why RIAA is not so quick to attack.

They can't attack the MP3 player makers. There's nothing wrong with the devices themselves, just like VCRs and DVD players. They are all legitimate.

[Pekka]

they lagimate, but they exploit illegal. So, hypocrite.

[Seeker]

http://www.zeropaid.com/news/articles/auto/06282003a.php

hmm looks like the idea of targeting a couple 'high-profile' users won't work after all.

I guess the RIAA will just have to arrest 10s of millions of Americans, not to mention overseas.

How about we just call all our major cities 'prisons', get arrested, and serve our time in special 'suburban incarceration units'?