@ Mike the Bard. Are you under the impression that I’m upset that you’re selling more music? Hell, No! I think it’s GREAT that more people are able to make money doing what they love. And for your info, most of my music doesn’t come from a major label anymore. But I don’t think that in the years between 1999 and 2006 tweens evolved to the point where 20 million of them decided not to follow the herd, threw off the chains of the music industry, and embraced music that wasn’t played on the Disney Channel. My point is this: a lot of teenagers liked “High School Musical”, yet the soundtrack only sold 3 million copies. Pre-file sharing, the Backstreet Boys sold 20 million copies of an album. I doubt that 17 million kids suddenly decided to buy non-Disney music, recession or no.

Why are people denying that many, many people are stealing music on the internet? And that it’s not a good thing to do? Why are people trying to justify it?

I prefer to buy direct from the artists, and I’ll take the physical disc if I can get it.

The reason people think you’re trolling is because you’re parroting the arguments of the copyright industry. You’re even insulting homebrew software authors by implying that they exist only to justify unlicensed software distribution.

Billster, unlicensed music distribution isn’t stealing, so your “stealing is stealing” argument falls apart right at the beginning.

I think where people are finding most fault with your argument, is the false assumption right at the beginning. The reason illegal file sharing has been branded ‘stealing’ is not because you gain new access to something. In regards to your flawed analogy earlier, the reason stealing is bad generally is because it deprives the rightful owner of her property, NOT because it nets the second party with product. ie, if I made an exact replica of your car at no cost to you, in what way is that bad?

The argument used to brand illegal downloading as stealing is the idea that you are depriving the artist/company of theoretical profits. So, as of now, people are being forced to pay $1.92m for 24 songs, because record labels have managed to convince people that their assumed profits are just as legit as real ones. We’re legislating and treating people like criminals based on what someone *thinks* *might* have happened in an alternate reality. It’s the future already, but we don’t have jetpacks or precogs or sick-sticks… We just have greedy execs who ignore science, and try as hard as they can to ignore reality.

And, incidentally, this study absolutely, positively undermines the profit-deprivation assumption too.

My definition of stealing involves depriving someone of something to get it yourself. When I take your car without permission, you don’t have it anymore, and so I call that stealing. When I copy your song (or photograph your painting) without your permission, you still have it.

I make a point of buying music that I like. But I never buy music that I haven’t heard unless it’s from a band I already trust. This is true of many people. The capacity exists for me to try before buying. The only people this harms are the musicians whose work I don’t like and would otherwise have wasted money on. I am not particularly concerned with the financial survival of musicians I don’t like.

However, i like vinyl, so if i did like the album i would buy it on wax. Most albums come with a download coupon now so my DL was validated.

Since using LaLa tho, i can listen to an album i am interested in, in high quality uninterrupted start to finish (once) and then make my decision. This i think is the best single achievement in the fight against music piracy as it makes browsing music legal and easy.

i feel like it is respectful to artist and music lover alike.

In the first place, a lot of what I download is stuff I already have on CD or vinyl, or stuff that is so obscure it never made it to CD.

When it comes to new music, a good percentage of the time if it is something I enjoy I DO buy CDs and records, and I can think of a number of artists I would never have know about had it not been for p2p sharing.

Though if you ask me, if companies really want to attract buyers, they should not only offer a decent sales option online, they should bring back more vinyl.

Why pay for fragile, scratchable medium like CD when there are options which are more convenient and can be reproduced (online) and more solid and durable (vinyl)?

A platter of analog vinyl in a nicely-printed jacket is something no file sharing system can duplicate. It also has a value that CDs sadly lack.

And how many movie tickets did the Backstreet Boys sell? How about their DVD sales? How much did the Backstreet Boys make from the commercials and product placement during their TV show? Correlation does not prove causality- CDs were a major part of the BBoys’ business model, but only a portion of HSM’s.

Seriously- You honestly can’t picture the 34 million parents of those 17 million tweens- faced with rising inflation, skyrocketing insurance costs, loosing half of their 401Ks, and fearing unemployment- telling their kids “I already bought you all three movies. We saw all three in the theater- Twice. You can live without the CD.”

Do you know how much the Backstreet Boys made from those 20 million albums? -$14million. That’s right: Where the management, promoters, producers, and label made billions, the band LOST $14 Million*- While every artist I know personally has seen both sales and profit margins increase over the same time period. Forgive me if I’m not shedding tears over those 3 million Disney discs.

*This is not a unique situation. Some artists have been so screwed by their labels that they come out OWING money for each album sold. “Promotional” copies (store buys 10 copies at double price, gets 12 more free, label pays artist royalties on 10, rather than 22 copies); “breakage” clauses (calculated for CDs in bubble wrap at the same rate as WAX 78s in wooden crates); and the great beast that is “Recoupable Expenses”…It’s no wonder the labels want to put guys like me out of business. We realized this was a raw deal even before Pearl Jam, Prince, Madonna, NiN, Radiohead…

How long before whoever commisioned this poll loses their job for letting the cat out of the bag?

Either that, or some NuLabour .ssh.t will stand up and say something like “better safe than sorry: we’ve got to protect the record companies’ obscene profits for the sake of the children”.

I wrote to amazon.com. You mean, I want to BUY this music, and you’re telling me I can’t?

I can’t get it here in Australia, either. So my only choice is to spend 2x on a physical CD, which I don’t want because a) optical media is prone to scratching and b) it takes up room in my house, room that I don’t have.

So, the record industry says, ‘Don’t steal our music,’ then turns around and says, ‘But we won’t sell it to you.’

Not saying it justifies piracy, but, well, wow! What a fantastic business model, hey.

ive not once met a single person (online or in real life) that downloads a lot (music, games, movies etc) and then buys the goods later on. And to be honest im not surprised, why buy the cow if you can steal the milk and get away with it?

Trent Reznor and to some degree Radiohead has figured this out… I firmly believe that artists deserve compensation for their work, but the vultures of the record industry can starve.

(Yes, I am still buying CDs. But I do so look forward to the day when I can buy all my music right from the source.)

Jeff

Not everyone just steals. There are lots of us who actually want to support the artists we like.