Got my first copy protected CD
Jan 17, 2003 at 8:02 PM Post #16 of 18
Quote:

Originally posted by TimSchirmer
I like to take it a step further, and boycott anything involved with the RIAA.

Here is a list of RIAA members, these are the labels who support copy protection...

http://www.riaa.org/About-Members-1.cfm

Come to think of it, I think I will post this in the member's section and perhaps audio asylum. I keep this list handy whenever I go shopping for new music. The only way to stop them is to put your money where your mouth is.


The RIAA controls >90% of the record industry. They've shown that they are averse to change. Were a giant boycott to be formed tomorrow, with 0 CD purchases for the next week, the RIAA would call on congress for immediate legislation(on subsidies, anti-P2P allowances, etc), with evidence that everyone has stopped buying their CDs because of "stealing music." And they would get it. Like it or not, their lobbyists have convinced Congress and a good portion of the American public that they DESERVE their place in the world.

It would, of course, be impossible to form such a boycott.

On the other hand, mass returns are a tangible thing protected by consumer-protection LAWS that are familiar enough to people that the laws won't be going anywhere. They hit businesses where it costs the most - Do you really think the RIAA or the artists are losing $14.99 EVERY time 12 songs are downloaded off kazaa? This hits them with the same amount of financial force that going in and physically stealing CDs(as has been compared so many times before) would. Unlike sharing songs, which doesn't deprive anyone of any tangible resources(only of the possibility of a certain gain in resources), returns deprive chains from whatever they payed for the CDs. With the number of middlemen between the artist and the consumer, SOMEONE(likely first the businesses) is going to stop and demand to know why they're losing money. If large chains refuse to sell copy-protected CDs, then there is no market for them(don't you just love capitalism run rampant?[the increasing rise of vast corporate empires that people keep protesting]), and they will cease to exist.
 
Jan 17, 2003 at 10:13 PM Post #17 of 18
<--- Steps up onto soapbox...

<BEGIN RANT>

I personally download tons of music. Crappy mp3s from mirc come into my computer at a rate of gigs per day but anything I like, I buy because 99% of the mp3s floating around the net sound so poor...and because its wrong to cheat hard working artists out of the (albiet small) money they make if I enjoy their work.

The only thing I do thats borderline 'bad' is if a cd has one or two decent songs on it and I don't like anything else on it, or from that artist for that matter, I'll rip it if a friend has it and play it that way...but either way, no agency has any right to say what I do with a cd or dvd that belongs to me. All they're doing is making me feel less and less bad when I decide to rip a case of 300 my friend's cds to perfect sounding vorbis 9 files to listen to before I buy any of them...and who knows...if they make it too tough to buy stuff, maybe I'll just not buy anything, rip everything and be done.

Every lock has a key...its not possible to lock a cd in a way that cannot be copied by something...RIAA should realize this and stop pissing off the people that matter (people who buy music regardless). High school kids looking for some bass to blast on a friday night are gonna download crap with reckless abandon and not buy cds like they 'should' whether someone tells them to or not.

A funny parallel: I run a computer consulting/building/repair business...sole proprietor style. I have a legal copy of windows XP professional...but guess what? I don't run it..it sits in a box in my closet. Why? Well...every time I change a system of mine around, I have to sit on hold for an hour for microsoft to give me a new activation key, and I change hardware a LOT. So, I run a bootleg. Point is, make a product too hard to use, people won't use it..or if they must, they'll find away around it. I keep the copy to be legal.....but I have no love for microsoft, the RIAA or the lame artists who don't understand the first thing about economics but feel its their right/duty to get up and take a stand against 'music piracy'.

Last time I checked, sales have been going up more and more each year...regardless of the progress of mp3, vorbis, napster, p2p, mirc etc. My plextors will be ripping up a storm..and I'll keep saving all the old firmwares I have so I can continue to even if plextor caves and eliminates support like so many other manufacturers do as a 'feature.' Screw em...the government and related agencies can do better with the 50% of my income they take in taxes than screw everyone else with strangling legislation.

</RANT>

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That is all.
 

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