It's better to steal a CD or kill someone than download illegally. - Page 2

this could work

I listen to jazz, which is a little difficult to find sometimes (especially when it comes to buying downloads...just not the market for it, especially with less known artists). One of my favorite ways to get music is the public library...seriously. I just grab a couple CDs of people I've never heard of, listen to them a couple of times, and take them back. It's a kind of compact disc adventure, if you will.

Deterrence. They figured that if they made copyright infringement risky enough, people would stop uploading/downloading from unauthorized sources.

They did think of that. That's why there's Macrovision and all that wonderful stuff on the video side of the game. They would do the same for music if there was a transparent way to do it. And really, music pirates don't use the analog feed. Why bother with the equipment and ADC process when you have a perfectly good digital feed to tap off of?

They come down hard on commercial copyright infringement too, mainly at the pirate CD/DVD pressing level. Lower than that and the cost/benefit ratio's looking awfully slim.

Isn't it odd how making analog copies of the same material is perfectly legal as long as you don't try to profit from said copying? From all the details on the major recent cases like jammie thomas and joel tenenbaum that i've read, so far it's not the downloading that can get you in trouble. I think that they've had to prove that the defendants have actually shared the music files contained on their compys to be held accountable for copyright infringement.

I say steal every last bit of data you can from the major labels so they go out of business and there can never ever ever ever ever ever ever be the likes of britney spears, or any of those other pop hosebags again, ever. We don't need the big companies to market good music anymore,(I don't think they have since a brief flash of glory back in the "80's anyway) the major labels are going the way of the edsel. If you like britney spears or any of that other pop trash, I pray the flying spaghetti monster has mercy on your soul or I will not be seeing you at the beer volcano.

Amazon lists used items for the title you want if used items are available. Get those.

I've gotten CDs for $0.01 + $2.90 shipping and handling.

seems rathers uncivil, if you ask me.

amazon has used cd's for only about half the new price. still not good enough even though I do get some from that source every now and then. at least I can rip flac and know it was done right.

I also buy used cd's but this skirts the issue. its a fake ethical 'way out' if you ask me. sure, you are not contributing to the Big Music bank account (and that's good) but you don't help the artists either and that's what the 'world' is wailing about, isn't it?

I don't see any diff between buying a used cd and downloading. not really, once you slice it down to fundamental parts. who makes money? some shmoe who resold the album, possibely even getting a free rip of it himself. (we know that happens more than not). is the artist 'encouraged' at all by used sales? no. same as downloading. in downloading, no one makes money and in the used cd example, only that selling schmoe recoups his cd cost (perhaps).

yes erik, you are fully legal. lawyers like that, right? but ethically you are still 'stealing' the music in the eyes of big music since their long-term stretch goal is to make consumers pay on a per-listen basis.

at some point, I can see the music industry fighting to remove your right to keep 'persistent data' (plastic discs) and you'll really have to download and pay over and over again each listen. that does seem to be their goal.

IANAL, but I see no diff in the level of 'harmed party' between free downloading and used cd sales. one is 'legal' but legal is arbitrary and not any absolute (many laws are crafted by special interests and don't have any sense of justice to them).

so while I'll continue to buy used cd's, I'll not judge those that download. to me, both ways 'deprive' the artist of his so-called deserved recurring income.

what I'd like to see is a 'tip jar' for each artist (and production person, etc). that way you can get the songs any way you want and its voluntary to pay the artist what you think its worth. radical idea but it may work. people generally DO want to reward effort and if they had an effective micropayment system that bypasses the fat-cats, they'd use it. artists WOULD get paid, directly. to me, it seems a far better system. what we have now is a huge mess and a time of 'change'.

True, but if you're in the business of buying new vinyl records, those can cost twice as much as a new CD. Certainly have had to cut back on those.

Time for a new business model, I say. I work for newspaper which are going out of business because of "free" news on the web. I'm all for newspapers going out of business because to me they're antiquated and a waste of wood. I say when there's a chance of a better distribution method, let the old dogs die and the innovators rise. That will be the bands who distribute their own music or a collective who does so. Britney Spears (I don't blame her) examplifies the worst of the music industry and their tie-in to fame, misfortune, abuse, scandal in the name of a handful of Beverly Hills executive making payments on their Rolls Royce, all-the-while creating monsters like the Madonnas and the Lohans and not giving a damn about the victims like Spears who they chew up and spit out. Welcome to the machine.

Wow... I've never seen the argument twisted quite like that before. You really, really, really want to feel morally justified, don't you?

The way I read that, you're saying that the issue of theft turns entirely on whether the person who created the music benefits each time it's consumed.

That's entirely beside the point. By the same logic, you could never buy a used car, used book or anything secondhand.

Complete nonsense.

There's a longstanding policy in the law that forbids restraint on alienation. What that means is that once you sell something you cannot place restrictions on what the person who buys it does with it. You cannot forbid them from reselling it.

Once a CD sells, the buyer is free to resell. It is entirely legal to buy the disc from that buyer. Once you purchase it, it's yours. It doesn't matter if you buy it new or not, it's completely legal, ethical and moral to do so. Further, the artist, et al. benefit the first time something sells. The used market is no secret; they go in knowing that their discs will be re-sold and the industry has never made a stink over it.

Downloading music you don't own is theft. It's really not that difficult of an issue. Unless you're doing it and desperately trying to find an excuse to do it, of course. It keeps artists, et al. from being paid for that first use.

By the way, special interests didn't ram through special laws about downloading. The few cases I've looked at went mostly on the theory of conversion. That came out of common law and has been around a good 600 years. I'm pretty sure they didn't have recorded music back then. And it's the same theory that makes it wrong to steal a car. You want to do away with that? Further, the award comes from juries. People out of the community, not someone from the music industry.

Tip jars only work so well. Go check out the stats from when Radiohead released "In Rainbows" online and asked for donations. A lot of people didn't. It was legal to download that for free, but I sent them $10. Seemed fair.

usually but not always... sometimes there's the somewhat uncommon case of some obscure out of print album that rarely pops up on the used market and often for ridiculously high prices which puts no money into the pocket of anyone responsible for the creation or distribution of that CD and it's also not available through any lossy music stores...

right now i'm looking for 2 such albums... Necrotic Disgorgement - Suffocated in Shrinkwrap... best price i can find is about $14 and it sold for $10 new direct from the label (i can't stand markup of out of print anything even if it's only $4) and also Frightmare - Bringing Back the Bloodshed which rarely pops up on ebay at a reasonable price and check out the super low prices on amazon marketplace

am i saying this justifies illegal downloading? not really i'm just saying that sometimes it's the only way to acquire certain music without spending ridiulously high prices (though you could always send the artist a few bucks with a note "i wasn't going to spend $80 to buy your out of print album [albumtitlehere] so i downloaded it... i'm not a thief so here's some money")

none of that $2-5 per disc makes it back to the artist... not that i don't buy used CDs i'm just saying

This does indicate that folks are searching for a better way to be compensated for their product. There will be false starts, and then a new standard.

BTW, regarding the comment to my question on coming down hard on the vendors, that is to say, the cost-to-benefits ratio being poor, what about the cost-to-benefits ratio of a multi-kilobuck judgment against some poor teenager?

Nope... that's a much bigger crime.

How, exactly, would a musical act get a large enough audience to support them through this method? Only musical acts with enormous audiences built up over long major record label careers (Radiohead, NIN, Prince) have been able to even attempt this model and come out with reasonable success.

The value of the major record label system is that it is the best method of promoting a musical group. Until other methods start approaching their success, the 'fat cats' aren't going anywhere.

A lot better than busting the guy with the suitcase full of DVD/CDs.

Bust a guy with the suitcase full of copyright infringing DVD/CDs and all he loses is a few hundred dollars in merchandise. Same time next week, he'll be back at the flea market with another suitcase full of copyright infringing DVD/CDs.

Bust a teenager or college student and they'll most likely settle for ~ $6k and discontinue their copyright infringement. Even better, they'll serve as an object lesson to others in their social network which may cause those people to discontinue their copyright infringement.

Either way though, the RIAA has discontinued that strategy.

Hell no!
Killing someone is a far worse crime than downloading music illegally. Not even close...
I see stealing physical CDs are a worse crime than downloading music illegally as well. Simply for the fact that you steal a product someone else have paid for (cd store, or like), while downloading illegally "only" mean lost income for the record company..

Well, some people would buy a new CD only if they are able to sell it off used later. The used market is essntially a cost splitting mechanism.

Better the artist sell the same CD to 2-3 people, than to not sell it at all.