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What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander So… megacorporate musicland wants to attack people’s computers, with state sanction, to stop them doing things they dislike. This could be interpreted by the vast army of hackers and script kiddies out there as a declaration of war that is tantamount to painting a bullseye on the side of the RIAA servers.
Of course I would hate for anyone to construe these remarks as actually encouraging people to do to the RIAA what they are planning to do to millions of other people. No, that would be….bad.
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Just like the William Morris Agency used their lawyers to threaten a blogger, and subsequently backed down, so, too, will the RIAA come to rue the day they threatened the world of computer hacker-types. In this case, all those little “Davids” have the “Goliath” outmatched in skills as well as armament.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA !!
Yep. Just wait till Fluffi Bunni gets into RIAA’s systems. Defacing websites and DOS’ing servers will be the least of RIAA’s worries.
As I wrote in a previous comment(by me of course, just scroll down), considering the amount of filesharers getting pissed of because of this (the little destructive program), and add all hackers, crackers, script kiddies etc. RIAA might be in really big trouble…then again, I doubt such a program(s) to actually effect the multitude.
They (who brought Napster down? Don’t remember all of a sudden…) couldn’t stop people from sharing files by taking down Napster, and will probably not be able to stop users to share files with that/those program/programs.
On a technical side, I don’t think you can implement “evil code” into mp3 code…does anyone know?
Apparently, Madonna did something similar in a fake track containing instead of music, her saying: “What the f*** do you think you are doing?”
Huh. The BBC did a pretty lame job of telling the tale. Within a short time of releasing the decoy MP3s, someone brought down Madonna’s official site, replacing the front page with “This is what the fuck I think I’m doing” and a linked list of actual MP3 files from her unreleased album.
In fact, dmusic is running a remix contest, using Madonna’s “What the…” sound file in an original composition. It would certainly be hard for her to claim she hadn’t given that sample away for free.
The rights and wrongs of this one are only of the most abstract interest. The bottom line is, under current technology, file sharing is easy, low-risk and unstoppable. And hence trying to solve the problem by simply pissing off the participants is very, very stupid.
S. Weasel writes:
“The rights and wrongs of this one are only of the most abstract interest. The bottom line is, under current technology, file sharing is easy, low-risk and unstoppable. And hence trying to solve the problem by simply pissing off the participants is very, very stupid.”
Exactly. What the record companies are doing (aided by the most egregious freeloaders of the lot – music publishers) is trying to defend a model which no longer works. Because they can’t see a future beyond the sale of plastic discs at massively inflated prices, they are kicking and screaming to defend that model. In so doing, they highlight the complete paucity of imagination which is, in part, what has brought their industry to this state. Even more foolishly, they are alienating their customer base and inviting counter-attack.
In essence, I’m inclined to agree that file sharing is depriving songwriters and artists of their rights. But the vast majority of musicians and songwriters are screwed rotten by the record companies anyway and would do far better under a new commercial arrangement that gave them a better deal. File sharing will continue, however much the RIAA blusters, and smart artists will already be looking to exploit their own intellectual property rights outside of the strangling embrace of the record and publishing companies.
Hye, there have been people doing dummy warezed games for years. They are instead viruses meant to torch the thiefs hard-dirve. I suspect, though can’t prove, that several of these gems were done by various game-company programmers on sick of seeing their hard work warezed. Can’t say I blame them really.
“Megacorporate musicland”, that is just sounds sooo communist. “Hackers and script kiddies”, more like a bunch of know-nothing wasters, script kiddies is a term of contempt you know.
“Outmatched in skills as well as armament”: nonsense. The best programmers are actually honest, not thieves.
In conclusion, making one vast sweeping generalization: All those advocating the theft of peoples property, and those advocating attacking those property owners who defend themselves are thieves and dirty communists.
Della writes:
“In conclusion, making one vast sweeping generalization: All those advocating the theft of peoples property, and those advocating attacking those property owners who defend themselves are thieves and dirty communists.”
Funny that. I haven’t seen anyone advocating theft. I have some seem some pretty desparate-looking straw men around, though.
It’s high time the record companies started going with the flow. Instead of railing against the tide they could start looking at file-sharing as a new business model. If they want to get ahead of the game again they need to provide something MP3-sharing presently cannot – specifically the vastly improved sound quality offered by the new DVD-A and SACD formats. Pushing hybrid discs that are compatible with either format would be an astute move – they are playable on conventional CD now but would have greater potential when the buyer eventually splashes out on the new format some time down the line (whichever one wins out, that is.)
I get the impression that 16-bit CD-quality sound is settling into a new home in our hard drives. The days where people hand over £17 for a CD are slowly coming to an end.
A British CD costs SEVENTEEN POUNDS!!!??? (I did not know that. I thought seventeen DOLLARS was steep.) How on earth do they pretend to justify this???
And they wonder why people are burning their own???
Wasn’t the point of CDs supposed to be that they were cheaper to produce as well as high-quality?
Reap what you sow, I suppose. Although I hate to condone theft of intellectual property, they make it so damn APPEALING…
An intellectual war is about to begin, with the potential to last for years, and cost millions of lives.
I am amused at the childish, self-serving righteousness of the downloaders, who dress up theft in a thin robe of, “Records cost too much, and we can get away with it. So there!”
Of course, the recording industry has been mobbed-up for years, and no one would truly regret the ruin of that particular subset of gangsters.
And it really seems like a bad idea to piss off hackers, if your industry is at all data based.
But maybe it is also a bad idea to piss off unscrupulous tycoons, as well. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn of a free-market solution, offering royalties to any programmer, of some percentage per record, for coming up with code which will identify who exactly possesses stolen music files. A cost of business which would turn the hackers upon each other, as it were.
Not that I want to see people thrown in jail–But the record company types have a rich lineage of thuggery, that ought to be taken into account.
If I was a music tycoon, I would sell my shares within 5 years tops and enjoy the rest of my life in a vast house in Cancun or Dalmatia, regaling people with stories of the time when music was a huge mass produced industry back before the early 2000’s which actually sold physical objects called CDs… before the whole business collapsed back into the folk industry it once was long ago in which lots of people make a little money by selling directly to people now that the markets have fragmented.
In a few years all that vast marketing hype will be unsupportable and access to cool stuff from Uzbekistan or Uganda will be the current craze… or is it India or Indiana… or Hungary or Hondurus… The only ‘big money’ will be playing concert halls live or writing movie soundtracks.
The future is coming and the buggy whip makers have had their day.
Much of the discussion here and elsewhere over this whole topic of filesharing covers some very good points on both sides, but it has also been missing some very important points.
One of the points that I see being skipped over is the driving force behind filesharing, which is cost.
Whether or not you think that file sharing is wrong, it is undeniably cheaper than purchasing the music. It also allows you to find any piece of music you ever wanted to own. If you have a wish list that is 1000 songs long, even if some of those songs are on the same album, at $15 for the (roughly) 600 albums it would take to cover your wish list, a savings of $9000 is an easy rationalization.
This cost is out there because of the RIAA’s business model, it is the distribution and packaging that they are making their money on, not on the actual content. They spew the content over the air waves on radio and TV daily essentially for free. Now their distribution has been undermined by new technology, but rather than alter their business, they allow the underlying overcharge of their package to undercut themselves.
It is time for a new business model period. Their own pricing and distribution costs engineered the current situation, and the only way for them to fix the situation is to remove the incentive to save multiple thousands of dollars by circumventing them.
Attacking file sharing will always be a failure as their battle with Napster has shown. Technology will find a way around them, always and forever.
People would prefer not to be thieves if given the choice, but you have to remove the huge incentive for them to become thieves for them to change, and that requires a new distribution model for the RIAA.
Scrawled on a building near me is a slogan: “Looting takes the waiting out of wanting”
That is perhaps true for the looter, they can get what they want for free right now. The only thing stopping the looters is that property owners defend themselves and the cost of going to jail is greater than the gain from looting. (See my sweeping generalization above)
High quality music costs money to produce, period. You want it for nothing, period. Something has to give, period. The music industry exists to make money, period.
Oh really? How many music files get swapped on Napster a day for free these days?
Technology isn’t the same thing as magic.
Della writes:
“High quality music costs money to produce, period.”
No it doesn’t – not unless you are talking about symphony orchestras and how many of those do record companies subsidise? The costs of producing music are insignificant today. Using Pro Tools and HD recording, even complex material can be recorded at home for peanuts. And since the recording industry stopped nurturing artists by underwriting tour expenses, even that excuse has gone out of the window.
Record companies and music publishers take the lion’s share and contribute very little. They and their apologists simply use ‘the struggling artist’ as a shield. This isn’t about artists, it’s about the loud lamenting of dinosaurs.
Della also writes:
“Technology isn’t the same thing as magic.”
You’re forgetting Clarke’s dictum that, if sufficiently advanced, it is indistinguishable from it. The record industry’s failure to understand technology is what has got it into this mess. Artists will survive and continue to prosper – people want music and they will buy it as they always have done. Record companies and parasitical music publishers possibly won’t.
The only people who will mourn them will be company staff and the battalions of lawyers they employ.
No Della, high quality music does not take much money at all to produce. In fact it has never been cheaper, just check out MP3.com, filled will vast numbers of tracks made by people on their computers and just as good as that which Big Music serves up, only for the most party MP3.com’s stuff is free, because the people who made it do so because they want to, not because they expect to be the next Britany Spears. That is way in the long run, BigMusic is fucked. Everything on MP3.com is legal. You can purchase the tracks on CD if you wish, and for a fraction of the cost of a regular CD.
Sorry Della but BigMusic cannot in the long run survive. What costs money is promoting starts with huge advertising budgets. That has nothing to do with making music however, just selling it. That, not making music, is what will become impossible as the market fragments into a zillion specialised genres. I mostly listen to EBM and Darkwave music myself… when was the last time something in those genres made it into the Top 100 charts? It has been more than two years since I purchased a CD in a record store, the last dozen or so I got direct from artists you will never have heard of via the web (usually MP3.com).
The de-massification process enabled by the internet, not just filesharing, is what will eventually destroy not just existing BigMusic but Music as a Business. Period.
Heh, I knew I’d be accused of wanting music for free. Della, at no time have I ever downloaded pirated music files. Nor do I plan to, and I have also not bought a CD from a major label in a few years. (mostly cuz what they produce is crap)
I also happen to work partly in the biz of music, mostly doing sound for local blues bands, as well as minor recording for self produced albums for local releases. And as has been mentioned already, the ability to record, mix and produce high quality music has gone down in cost over the last 5-6 years I’ve been involved by at least an order of magnitude. It is only going to get cheaper going forward. No longer will artists need to go to multimillion dollar studio’s for $200/hr recording sessions, there will be less and less need for the backing of a large company for a talent to get noticed, less and less need for 1,000,000 record sales for an artist to make money when 99% is taken off the top for the RIAA.
Napster is gone, but multiple ways have come up in its place, its a hydra, kill one, two spring up. Fix the business model, or die out. Simple.
I wouldn’t be surprised to learn of a free-market solution, offering royalties to any programmer, of some percentage per record, for coming up with code which will identify who exactly possesses stolen music files.
Ach! See, this is what the record companies are bumping up against, too – a fundamental misunderstanding of the technology. What you’re proposing is not possible.
We’re talking about converting an analog signal to ones and zeros, yes? And there’s no technological solution anyone in the industry has come up with that would prevent me, say, patching the headphone jack on my CD player into the input jack of my soundcard, right? Or, in extremis, holding up a microphone to a speaker, for goodness sakes (don’t laugh – the very success of MP3 tells you that most people aren’t audiophiles and are perfectly willing to give up some quality for the sake of portability). And once anything is reduced to ones and zeros, it’s freeeeeeee!
If they try to out-geek the geeks on this one, they’ll be disappointed.
People who are defending the RIAA’s actions wrt to “intellectual property” ignore the efforts of the RIAA and affiliated persons to control people’s ability to excersize their property rights with the CDs/tapes they purchased- file sharing and the assault on P2P is just another step in the long march by the entertainment industry to exercise more control upon where, when, how and how much money one spends to listen to music or watch movies or watch television shows.
The entertainment industry’s efforts to stamp out piracy have intruded upon people’s property rights- we no longer “own” the CDs or DVDs or tapes (video or otherwise) that we purchased, and our “license” to own the same does not prevent the RIAA from requiring us to buy a brand new cd if the original was damaged. The “war on intellectual property violators” is likely to fail like every other prohibition that has been enacted, and will result in more control handed to government or corporate interests and control (and privacy) stripped from the people.
File-sharing is theft even if it’s petty theft. It used to be no big deal before digital quality copying, but now it is simply too easy and costs the record companies (and the artists despite what a lot of you say) too much money to be allowed. It used to be that fans took pride in owning their favorite artists’ albums, nowadays they act as if they’re owed something.
On the costs of production, it is true that cheap means of recording very polished-sounding music are available and are used often by musicians. However, getting down an entire album of tracks takes more than equipment, it also takes expertise. If this weren’t true, then you would see a mass revolt of musicians cutting out the middle man and simply recording, pressing and promoting their albums on their own. One of the primary reasons they don’t is because few have the actual sound engineering capabilities to do it on their own. Another reason is because of (ta-da) *file-sharing*! The costs to a low-budget band of protecting their work are entirely too high when millions of thieves will disregard their property rights. Remember too that one of the base fears of any artist is that the competition will steal their ideas. The big, bad music companies that everyone seems to hate actually have the resources, tenacity and the firepower to protect those rights.
As for all of you so willing to stick it to those companies because they charge you too high a price and allegedly screw over the common artist, you all sound like a bunch of Marxist faithfuls. If you really think there is a better way, get off your duff and find it! It’s called “entrepreneurship” and will make you a sh*tload of $$$ if you succeed. The problem I think you’ll run into is, that the costs of getting up and running and then of protecting your hardwork are significantly greater than the benefits.
Of course, everyone thought that the Grateful Dead were idiots for freely allowing the taping of their concerts, and they did indeed suffer mightily in the retail market for their studio albums. But they created a cult following and made so much money off of their merchandize and side projects that the band is still paying pensions and other benefits for the roadies and others who slaved away for them over the long years of touring.
The point here is that there may indeed be a way for the file-sharing crowd and the music-creating crowd to come together in a meeting of the minds as to what constitutes the most beneficial exchange. Simply stealing the fruit of someone else’s labor because you think they got a raw deal in the process is illogical, immoral and plainly antithetical to what I have always considered to be the ethos of this ‘blog.
Simply stealing the fruit of someone else’s labor because you think they got a raw deal in the process is illogical, immoral and plainly antithetical to what I have always considered to be the ethos of this ‘blog.
Who’s advocating it? Pointing out that it’s happening (and will continue to happen despite everyone’s best efforts) isn’t a stamp of approval. It’s an observation of fact.
That many seem to relish watching an obnoxious industry catch one in the ouchy bits isn’t an endorsement of wholesale crotch-kicking. Just a bit of good, old-fashioned schadenfreude.
Perry,
Trees grow for free, chisels and saws are very cheap therefore anything made of wood should cost no more than a few saws and a couple of chisels. Am I missing anything?
I know a girl with an mp3.com site. What she expected from it was to attract attention to her music so she could get a record deal with one of these BigMusic conglomerates y’all hate so much.
Something else I should point out is that the stuff she puts on mp3.com is not her best work, she’s made stuff a lot better than is on her site but she keeps it for times when she will be payed for it.
Y’know Perry you can wait for capitalism to collapse under the weight of its own contradictions, it’s just not going to happen. However without adequite law enforcment capitalism can be badly crippled, maybe that’s what you see and you don’t realise it.
Something else I should point out is that the stuff she puts on mp3.com is not her best work, she’s made stuff a lot better than is on her site but she keeps it for times when she will be payed for it.
Gosh. I hope she’s a better musician than she is a businessperson.
I just bought a CD last week from a guy I’d never heard of, based on one MP3 he gave out for free. I was completely unsurprised to find it was the best cut on the album (which is okay…I’m pleased with the album overall). That’s how you sell stuff.
(And in case anyone has been hankering to hear klezmer played on a dobro – who hasn’t? – the artist is Stacy Phillips and the album is From the Inside).
I think Clarke was suggesting that to a person who does not know how the technology works it can seem like magic, even though technology isn’t the same thing as magic.
I don’t thing a lack of understanding has much to do with anything here, the record industry can’t afford to give away their products for free, therefore they have trouble competing with the trade in their own stolen music.
Who will orginise the distribution and promotion of music? Who will do the accounts? Who will handle any legal problems that will arise (such as theft). There are many mundane practical problems that the employees of record companies handle, it isn’t all just strumming guitars.
That guys site has had 475 hits, if, rather optimisticly, 10% of visitors bought the album then the site has made maybe $475. My friend has had auditions from at least 2 record companies that I know of, she may never be a superstar, but there’s a good chance she’ll make more money than that guy.
there’s a good chance she’ll make more money than that guy.
Oh, I’d be surprised. His albums sell through regular outlets, as well – not just his own website. Like Amazon, for example. I bought mine through efolkmusic.com (on account of they had a good price and I felt I owed them something for their bandwidth, as I’d downloaded his MP3s from their site).
For people who like his sort of thing, “that guy” is just the sort of thing they like.
Della writes:
“Y’know Perry you can wait for capitalism to collapse under the weight of its own contradictions, it’s just not going to happen.”
You’re missing the point. It is capitalism that has rendered the record companies and the publishers redundant (don’t forget the music publishers. You do *know* about music publishers and the little they do, don’t you?). It is capitalism that drove the technology that produced the Internet and capitalism that drove ideas like Napster. It is capitalism that drives artists to become their own record companies and publishers. It propels them from the status of serfs to the feudal recording industry to being in charge of their own businesses and careers. And yes, artists are doing this successfully and they are making more money. I recommend you read Janis Ian’s website on the subject.
Later on you say:
” Who will orginise the distribution and promotion of music? Who will do the accounts? Who will handle any legal problems that will arise (such as theft). There are many mundane practical problems that the employees of record companies handle, it isn’t all just strumming guitars.”
If you believe that the difference between what the artist gets paid and what Joe Consumer is charged for a piece of plastic is due to infrastructure costs, then you have been badly misled.
You also say:
“I don’t thing a lack of understanding has much to do with anything here, the record industry can’t afford to give away their products for free, therefore they have trouble competing with the trade in their own stolen music.”
Had the record companies not massively overpriced CDs when they forced the switch from vinyl, much of this might have been avoided. People resented being forced to pay through the nose for music they had already purchased once, perhaps even twice before. There was (and is) absolutely no justification whatsoever for the price the industry charges for CDs. Most people would rather buy the product and get the artwork. Many of us (I am one) hate the sound quality of MP3 and avoid it. Many people want to hear new artists. There are plenty of reasons people want to buy what the record companies wish to sell. Just not at the prices they need to finance their bad habits.
In reply to that immediately above, if the public morals do not coincide with a legislative position then all the leglslation in the world won’t help.
The ‘public morals’ clearly indicate that a large and statstically significant section of the listening audience don’t consider downloading music as reprehensible. Now, that’s really all there is to it.
This is standard – whenever a commodity is offered for a price that the public deem unreasonable, there is consequent rise in black market sales, whether from smuggled imports (if the increase is due to taxation) or cheap knockoffs, or ‘back of lorry’ sales etcetera. The market self-regulates. The producers can either accept that the market and _not_ the producers dictate prices for goods, or they can fail to accept this and legislate madly until they are 90% lawyers and 10% original concept. The central arguments that Della puts here are logically correct, the producers can sell the product for whatever they desire, and if you don’t like their pricing, tough – don’t buy it. But, like any purely theoretical model, it fails to take into account what _actually_ happens – which is that people will break the law – and when lawbreaking occurs on such a massive scale, the view of it changes from ‘throw them in prison’ to ‘oh crap, civil disobedience, we’d better rethink our policies before we become an ex-government.’
You can discuss theory as much as you like, and this is what the record companies are doing. Sooner or later, though, you have to deal with what is _actually_ happening – and that calls for compromise.
Without any ‘smart bomb’ to kill P2P networks and wipe strictly copyrighted material off computers, I see no ‘politically acceptable’ way out for the record companies here, at least none that enables them to continue with their current pricing and distribution schemes. The DMCA and Super-DMCA laws are costing them a ton of money in political bribes, and the populace have come to realise that their ‘bought’ representatives are giving them a pretty rough deal.
This is the information age, and the age of instant gratification. If I want _any_ track by _any_ artist, I can get it from a p2p network of the day within _seconds._ Only when the record agencies provide the same ease of access will they make any headway over the p2p market. I would love to be able to go to say, amazon.co.uk and pay for and download any individual track in a guaranteed high quality format. This is what is desired, and when they offer it, they’ll win back the market. Until then, they can be the baddest mofo on the block, the virtual drug dealer protecting his patch with his shotgun and his heavies – and we all know how much respect we have for that sort of character!
Like every red you way that the populace is all in favour of your property abolishing program, however as usual the populace begs to differ. The looting occuring through the distribution of pirated music is a activity carried out by only a small part of the population, end even most of them realise it is wrong.
Yes, but instant gratification is a common feature of a lot of criminal activity, the criminal wants something, they see it, they take it. Say some guy saw me on the street. He wants to have sex with a woman, he sees a woman, he takes the woman…bada bing, bada boom, one instantly gratified guy. You may say that only when women provide the same ease of sexual access will they be able to stop rape, but I am of the opinion that greater disinsentives to law breaking are the only thing that’s going to reduce rape. Note that I said reduce, not stop, because I recognise that it is not possible to stop all crime, however immoral the crimes in question may be.
Della writes:
Actions are expression, attitude is posing. If they’re doing it, they clearly don’t think it’s ‘wrong’ or ‘duly criminalised’ or ‘rephrehensible’ or any particular term you wish to use. I may allow that they would ‘prefer to be legitimate’ and in that they accept that what they are doing is legally wrong.
Your argument is also self-contradicting – if this piracy were only carried out by a small part of the population, no one would be caring. Piracy is mainly carried out by those who cannot afford to purchase legitimate copies of the material anyway, so if your view were true, only a small segment of those who were unlikely to consume the material in the first place would be pirating it. Your opinion also contradicts the facts – research indicates the average downloader earns over $50k, is middle age, etcetera etcetera (go and look it up, big survey recently done.)
Your instant gratification response WRT comparing it to rape is so obviously intended as satire that I feel no reason to attempt to respond to it.
You can call me a Red or a Commie or a Pinko or whatever you desire, if it’ll make you feel better. Private property is a concept enshrined in law because everyone believes in it and respects it. IP legislation/DMCA is enshrined in law because the laws were bought. One of these things is valid. It’s like drugs laws – no matter what the original arguments for or against them are, the central point is that if the populace don’t agree with it, they’ll be consistently broken. You may call that ‘communist’ if you wish, but civil disobedience by a minority (with tacit support from a majority) is a democratic concept through and through.
Yes, filesharing is theft. But let’s equate it to more conventional theft. If someone steals something from you, the law doesn’t allow you to trash their home looking for it.
The business model point is right. It’s far easier to burn several CDs which you own onto a computer device (MP3 player or laptop) than to lug all them around. In fact, that probably increases CD popularity.
I just HAD to jump in here…dear Della you said:
“Yes, but instant gratification is a common feature of a lot of criminal activity…Say some guy saw me on the street. He wants to have sex with a woman, he sees a woman, he takes the woman…bada bing, bada boom, one instantly gratified guy. You may say that only when women provide the same ease of sexual access will they be able to stop rape, but I am of the opinion that greater disinsentives to law breaking are the only thing that’s going to reduce rape.”
That is a pretty irrelevant analogy! File sharing is NOT equivalent to rape in any way shape etc. We’re talking about business models and copyright law, for god’s sake.
The music publishers found a niche where they could make lots of money. Technology is squeezing out that niche. Period.
Amy,
Harvey seemed to regard decedance and instant gratification as prime motive forces in society, and they would change society in such a way that society would fall into line with whatever kind of debauchery some criminal minority had in mind at the time. The rape analogy was an example of what that sort of thing leads to, it was the most extreme example that I could think of at the time.
I know that the recording industry will undergo periods of technological change, but the main article that spawned this post was an article advocating the attack of property owners who were defending themselves against looters. If the recording industry does not do something about the looting it will ultimately collapse.
I find it interesting that a lot of libertarians don’t seem to want to recognise the existence of intellectual property. They seem to regard it as some sort of artificial creation of the government, just as communists regard all other property as an artificial construct, even though intellectual property existed before the state got involved. I recognise that the way intellectual property is currently handled is different to all other property, but this is not so much an attribute of the property, so much as a result of the interference of the government.
Della writes:
“I find it interesting that a lot of libertarians don’t seem to want to recognise the existence of intellectual property.”
With respect, you seem at a tangent to the central argument. Most posters here seem to agree that intellectual property is a reality.
But to extend that provision to a blanket license to run a racket is a very different matter.
It is hard to see how the defenders of the recording industry’s status quo can maintain their case in the face of the overwhelming evidence that record companies and music publishers are guilty of massive overcharging, persistant illegal activities, at times vicious exploitation of artists… Why would anyone defend them?
You are, I would suggest, confusing an attack on one of the most unpleasant business cartels of the lot, with an attack on the concept of intellectual property rights.
They may all agree that it currently exists, but it is apparent that many disagree with its existance, and as I said earlier, some regard IP as an goverment created artifice, even though it’s not.
All they are doing is hacking after they have some evidence someone is distributing pirated music. Hacking is not the worst thing in the world.
There are an army of private security guards running around Americas Malls with guns. They must in some case shoot theives, even theives who steal CDs. In Britain they don’t have guns but they do arrest and hold people whilst they wait for the police to turn up, even people who steal music. What’s with this aversion to people defending what’s theirs? Do the goverment police have to do everything? You know they’re kind of busy already.
One would think with all the allegations of averace surrounding music compaines that they must be the most profitable buisneses in the world…the rapacious capitalists of the music industry brutally exploiting their workers and conspiring to empty the pockets of their customers, some of whom are even children! Won’t somebody save the children!
Meanwhile you have the vanguard of the proletariat represented by the file-traders. These people can see the explotation and degridation of the music industry, and how they exploit their workers. They are so very sympathetic to the poor exploited workers.
So they take from the record industry, the bleed them dry, they take everything they have till the record insustry is left with nothing.
Coincidently the poor exploted workers of the record industry are also left with nothing, and the industry they had hoped to build their dreams on is destroyed. After a while the vaguard of the proletariat notices that the quality of music produced lately has really taken a dive, and there’s nothing much worth taking anymore, their interests switch to their next target.
A) I’m not actually against cartels.
B) The current record industry is not a cartel. Cartels are illegal, an they’re probably very careful to avoid even the impression of giving a hint of being a cartel. They can get dawn raids at any time and the fines are huge.
C) Cartels always collapse pretty quickly even when they are legal.
Cartels always collapse pretty quickly even when they are legal.
OPEC
Della writes:
“C) Cartels always collapse pretty quickly even when they are legal.”
Which is precisely what is happening.
The original version of that sentence had more wiggle room, I should have left it at that, or maybe qualified the sentence in some way to explain that I meant cartels run by capitalist organizations operated for the purposes of increasing profit. I salve my conscious by noting that although the OPEC cartel was pretty effective at one time it isn’t anymore.
The GDP per capita of Iran, which produces about half what Saudi Arabia produces was $1,270 in 2001, a quarter of what it was in 1979, so there’s plenty of room at the bottom. In the period 1980-1999 the average annual growth rate in GDP per capita in various OPEC states was as follows:
The OPEC cartel will formally collapse eventually. This does not change the fact that the record industry is not a cartel.
Della wrote:
“I find it interesting that a lot of libertarians don’t seem to want to recognise the existence of intellectual property”
Exactly so, if you ask me! “Intellectual property” is merely a device to inflate the price of an essentially cheap thing you are selling, like a 5-inch metallized plastic disc called a “CD” that – as the prices for CD-R blanks prove – can be produced for far less than $1, and (much worse) a way for self-appointed media moguls to dictate to the public what they are allowed to hear and see.
If there were no “rights” to music and recordings, but artists just got paid for recording like they are for public performances (it was like that when sound recording was first introduced, before the Musicians’ Union became greedy), the general artistic quality of recorded music would probably improve (it was arguably better in those days – trashy jazz and pop music is a more recent invention, forced down the throats of the once musically tasteful and educated Europeans by the US Re-Education campaigns after both World Wars, and by the US media bosses ever since).
All kinds of exclusive contracts, royalties etc. just cause more bad music to be promoted, and nincompoops to be made “pop stars”. If you couldn’t make “big money” by making music, music-making would get back from the hands of the greedy into the hands of the *artistic-minded* people, and all those rappers and hip-hoppers would be back where they belong, namely in Skid Row, no longer molesting decent folks aurally and visually on TV and radio.
Music made in public, especially at concerts etc. where the audience already paid their (often considerable) fee to the artists and producers, should be automatically in the public domain, i.e. anybody should be free to record it and distribute these recordings – the artists already have received their due on that performance, haven’t they? An exemption might be made if an “official” recording of that very performance is made (not just a “similar” studio recording!) and afterwards sold by the artists or their representatives. Such recording would however always be technically superior to one made from the audience, and therefore could rightfully demand an extra price for the extra quality even if taping at the concert was free.
Once a recording is made and published, it should be exclusive property of the producer (who in turn bought it from the artist/author) _only_as_long_as_he_is_actually_furnishing_it_to_the_public_. Today, record companies sit on huge piles of the most interesting performances which they have withdrawn from the market, but still are able to exercise “copyright” in them, either by trying to block their private (e.g. file-sharing) distribution among those who would like to hear that music, or by demanding often prohibitive fees for licensing music that has already paid its expenses many many times – in other words, they sit on property which is no longer of use to them (if they found it profitable, they’d surely keep the recordings in print), and current law allows them to blow a raspberry at anyone who does want to put it to proper use, i.e. distribute it and let people listen to it.
If you ask me, this behaviour is tantamount to *asking* for ignoring their copyright. “Copyright” means the (exclusive) right to make copies of, in this instance, a recording – it should include that the holder doesn’t exercise that right (e.g. doesn’t provide copies), ANYONE ELSE should have the right to make them instead. In particular, recordings withdrawn from company catalogues due to lack of commercial interest should immediately fall in the public domain – a third party republishing them surely couldn’t diminish the profits of the original producer which are *zero* for an out-of-print recording. Same goes for all other recordings which have fulfilled their commercial purpose (eg. radio and TV broadcasts) and are of archive interest only. Sound archives should have not only the right but the *duty* to provide copies of their holdings to the public at no higher cost than necessary to provide for personnel, material and shipping (otherwise, why have such archives in the first place? Recordings that aren’t available for listening are worthless and might as well be thrown away!)
Frank writes:
“Yes, filesharing is theft. But let’s equate it to more conventional theft. If someone steals something from you, the law doesn’t allow you to trash their home looking for it. ”
If you had really tried to equate it with theft you’d have found that it isn’t theft at all!
If I have bought a CD, make the recording into mp3s and send them to you, how can it be theft if I still have the CD, and the files, afterwards? If you think about it, it’s not even a *gift* as I haven’t given anything away.
Even if I have the files on my harddisk and you hack yourself into my system to copy them without my knowing and allowing it, *I still have them undamaged*, so it certainly can’t be theft.
In both cases, the original producer/author/artist who made the CD haven’t suffered any damage, for if the sharing wouldn’t have taken place, I’d still have bought the CD, only you hadn’t got the files. That’s where the CD producers seem to go wrong: they apparently believe you’d have bought their CD if you hadn’t received my mp3s. From my own experience I can only say: B***s***! There’s a LOT of music around I find pleasant enough to listen to occasionally, but would never dream spending a single dollar for it. THAT is the kind of music that gets shared – you download it, listen to it once or twice, and delete it to make room for new music. Variatio delectat! If I really care for an artist (often enough one I first heard through some shared file), I want to *possess* their original CDs, just like you buy your favourite books and are not content to borrow them from the public library to read them, or have their content as ASCII text on the WWW.
What people are distributing for free is NOT THE PROPERTY OF THE RECORD PRODUCERS which is in no way diminished by filesharing. It is no physical matter, and moreover something that can be reproduced AD INFINITUM and therefore cannot be said to be anyone’s property. If “music” can be somebody’s property, we are in danger that “air” and “space” will be claimed as property by somebody soon. In fact, the whole filesharing discussion shows up the absurdity of the concept of “intellectual property”: If I take a book or a CD from its owner that’s – of course – theft. If I *memorize* the contents (learn the words in the book or the music on the CD by heart) and leave the hardcopy behind, it obviously isn’t, on the contrary people can be *expected* to memorize (parts of) what they read and hear, so it’s probably the among the author’s/producer’s *intentions* that this happens. So if I use a technical device for “memorizing” (a photocopier or an mp3 player) – practically nothing but an extension of the “built-in memory” inside my head – it should be no difference. After all, murder is murder no matter is I use my own hands or a technical device (e.g. a gun) for the deed, so copying is copying no matter if I use my brain or a harddrive to achieve it!
Counterfeiting CDs (i.e. making hardcopies in CD or similar format and selling these) is a crime of course, because it’s a damage to the publisher every time someone buys one of your copies instead of his original; but where is the difference in my inviting my friends to my house to let them listen to a CD I have bought (legal), phoning them and play the music to them over the phone (also legal), and sending the digital data by FTP to them so they can listen at their own homes (illegal)? THAT’S what filesharing is. Those who download the files haven’t obtained ANY product (and thus no “stolen” product either), but just – in encoded form – the same set of soundwaves they can legally listen to if they are in the same room as the owner of the original CD. Often enough, CDs are played in shops etc. and on the radio, and you have to hear the music whether you like it or not. This allegedly *promotes* CD sale. So why should other methods, like filesharing, that make many people hear the music, *diminish* CD sale? Nobody receives an actual CD like the company sells it for free through filesharing. If you are very lucky, the sound quality of mp3s is comparable, but there’s no artwork, no pictures, no documentation on the artists, not even the guarantee the song will play through to the end and not break off suddenly – nothing you expect from a full-price CD, so shared files can never be a competition or a replacement for real CDs for the discriminating customer.
To say you are “stealing” something when you merely copy the *content* of a CD is like saying you are “stealing” the Statue of Liberty when you make a photograph of it, or you are “stealing” a book from the library when you are copying out the information to study at home. In each case, the CD, the Statue and the book are still there, no damage has been done to their owners or originators, nor has their future use been detracted from.