Downloading - another viewpoint.

[Technosoul]

If Walmart was selling some items in their store but you noticed that someone outside of the store, in a parking lot next door, was giving away the same things for free. Would it be a crime to walk off with the free stuff if you knew Walmart also had those items for sale? Should you get arrested?

Now compare that to downloading free music from some shared files webpage. Should you get arrested or pay a fine?

The downloader is the only one guilty of the crime because he duplicated it on a CD disk, and it is unlawful to duplicate a copyrighted song.

Now when you download a song to hear it the webpage automatically transfers the song and duplicates it in your "shared file" software for you. Then when you log on others can also download that same song from your file. Soon hundreds have the song in their files and so the song is nearly always obtainable for downloading. All you did was click one button with your mouse, and the computers did all the duplicating when the file was transferred. So you just transferred a file and did not acturally manufacture it as a duplicate. I say that because you do not have to make a CD but rather, you can just listen to all the songs with your computer rather then on a CD player. If you do not make a CD (DVD) are you still acturally duplicating copyrighted material - yourself.

The problem is that when something is offered for free it is a great temptation to refuse the offer. It it is different then stealing it from Walmart where they would charge you a price for a CD. You are not sneaking off with something that has a "fore sale" sign on it, or a price tag, when you download from a shared file webpage.

Putting it on a CD as a back-up "hardware" copy is something people do to insure their file is not lost if the computer goes down unexpectedly. But it is not like you are making money singing someone elses song and selling it.

I think they are "making up" the idea that downloaders are stealing things from the music industry. Few people would go out and buy that many songs because it would be too expensive, so they share. They buy one CD and upload it, after paying for it, and then download one someone paid for. An exchange between friends. Not stealing.

The problem is people become fans of a singer, and they want to share that with the world. Why? Because they feel the singer has something important to say in their song that they want others to know about, or they want to share the "feelings" they enjoyed with others. It becomes sort of like an religious zeal or passion for the cult following to "spread the word" like as if it were a spiritual misssion to do so. This is because the music becomes something "personal" to them. So they want to share that personal "thing" with others - not for some capitalistic reason, but as a motive of love for the music.

Of course this is driving the music industry nuts because of the ease with which a new song can be distrabuted to so many people so quickly. In the old days you could tape songs from the radio for free and snail mail them to a friend. And get a tape back of songs they like. Nowadays you can contact millions of "friends" with a click of the mouse via computers. And you do not have to wait until the stores reduce the price real low on LPs that are no longer in the top ten brackets. Of course you can go to a Goodwill or thrift store and buy CDs cheap like, or at garage sales and swapmeets. Is that stealing?

Now throughout my life I have had large collections of 78rpms, 45rpms, LPs, tapes, and a nowadays a few CDs. Records and tapes I paid for, nearly a million if I counted them all (as I sold most of them). Last week I sold a Yardbirds LP on the orginal Epic label, and the week before I sold a LP record (for $20.00) by Johnny Guitar Watson on Chess lable. This week in my booth I have an LP by Ricky Nelson on the old Imperial label for sale. In near mint condiction with some of his best rockabilly songs as titles. They still demand good money because they cannot be duplicated with computers.
The old plastic discs are collectables if you have the right ones. I doubt if CDs will ever become collector items in the future. Perhaps a few but mostly because of the paper "jacket" that comes with the disk and holder.

The point is that the real fans want the orginials and not the duplicates, so they are going to pay the store price anyway. As would people who are into music as a collectable item. Downloaded movies and CDs have no value when it comes to being resold, that is worth the effort. People do know the difference.

Here is another important point. Music downloading has prevented a lot of crime in the big city. When CDs first came out they were hot items and that was before you could download them. At that time I worked for a music store where we also sold used CDS at a much cheaper price. People would bring in the ones they got at stores because they needed some money right away, and we got them for next to nothing. However a lot of gangsters would break into cars and houses and steal peoples CD collection and bring them in for fast cash - no way to tell who was who - (well some hoods came in everyday to sell their CDs for our used section, and we would wonder why a rap guy would have Beachboy CDS. Ha! Wonder my foot. The owner would still buy them). Some crooks would steal them at stores and get fast cash selling them to other stores that would buy "used CDs". The crooks could care less if they got $2.00 each for CDs worth $8.00 each.
But now people do not buy a lot of used CDs because they can download the songs off a webpage - so the crime of breaking windows of cars and running off with CDs has stopped. As well as a motive to break into someones house. And stores have far less shoplifting. So CD downloading prevents crime also which lowers the number of police calls and the expense of extra secuirty guards at music stores. That is a good thing and it gives some "balance" to the whole problem of stealing music.

Whatcha think?

[tinybear]

Here's my question: Youtube hosts a lot of music videos. Why isn't that illegal? The music/record companies must know of this. If they don't, they must live in Mars or something.

[Chris]

here is the problem,

Most ignorant record companies think that ipod owners are stealing music when in actuality most ipod owners are using their own music bought from their own cds. The record companies, convinced microsoft to DRM the hell out of their Zune and that was one of the major factors contributing to its death. The future is a DRM free world where if we download the song for free, If we dig it, we are going to buy it. Once record companies realize this, -thats when they are going to start making money again.

Steve Jobs is on the right track. We need to Kill this thing that we call DRM.

[shawmutt]

If Walmart was selling some items in their store but you noticed that someone outside of the store, in a parking lot next door, was giving away the same things for free.

Nothing in this world is free. Where did this someone get the items from, and why is this person giving away free stuff? Sorry, but the analogy is flawed. Downloading music is stealing music, no matter how its justified. Admit you're stealing music and feel like a pirate (you can even get the eye patch if you'd like) or stop stealing music. Don't try to explain away stealing.

I don't steal music. I spend a small monthly fee for Yahoo's radio service and rent all the music I want to hear, guilt free.

[grandpa]

Some things are free, unless you count opportunity costs, which are applicable to life in general outside of capitalist theory.

Grandpa h.

[Sarah22]

File sharing may boost CD sales

Harvard Gazette: File sharing may boost CD sales

[Fonceai]

Here's the problem...

Music...

Downloading MP3s lets people here the whole CD without paying for it. Most people are fairly honest about buying the CD if they like it.

Downloading movies saves people the $10 per ticket it costs to see a shitty movie. Again, if someone likes the movie, they usually drop the cash to see it on the big screen, or at least rent it legitimately.

Downloading video games saves someone upwards of $50 on a game where the demo might not reveal the depths of suck, or the game is beatable in a day or two.

[Chris]

Quote by: Fonceai Here's the problem... Downloading movies saves people the $10 per ticket it costs to see a shitty movie. Again, if someone likes the movie, they usually drop the cash to see it on the big screen, or at least rent it legitimately.

...or buy the DVD -which is what the cinemas are now a days anyway, just a platform to sell DVDs

[Scribbler1]

I never understood why anyone would buy a DVD of most movies they see. Some movies I can see buying (With me it's Star Wars and Star Trek films.), but most are one-shots. I have a pile of movies I either bought or recorded (for my own use) from Television. Most of those are never watched more than once and some I haven't seen at all after I recorded them.

[abub]

downloading music is nothing but a pain. more often than not, the sound quality is horrible and you end up with permanent spyware on your computer.

[Technosoul]

Quote by: shawmutt Nothing in this world is free. Where did this someone get the items from, and why is this person giving away free stuff? Sorry, but the analogy is flawed. Downloading music is stealing music, no matter how its justified. Admit you're stealing music and feel like a pirate (you can even get the eye patch if you'd like) or stop stealing music. Don't try to explain away stealing. I don't steal music. I spend a small monthly fee for Yahoo's radio service and rent all the music I want to hear, guilt free.

I looked into some of those webpages where you pay a buck a song to download tunes, but they only have big hits (mostly) and none of the rare and hard to get songs that us collectors like to research and listen too.

However collectors can share those rare recordings with each other as sites where the consumers are also in charge of what is listed, by their uploadings. I have many very rare items on tape that I made a long time ago off of old 45rpms and 78rpms, songs that the current music industry no longer reproduces for sale. And I have met others who also have rare songs that I have always wanted but never could locate (at any price). Also in Japan they put out CDs containing much of our cultural music that was recorded down through the ages, but they are not allowed to import them to the USA unless they get one of our distrabution centers to carry it, but they only want to carry the titles that have the biggist demands. On shared files you can explore music from around the world instead of just what is offered by USA sources.

With movies people go into to a movie house with computer camera and record the movie (stealing it) when it first comes out and they they "share it" on the web. (poor quality versions at that, sometimes) and they also sell them at swapmeets after making DVDs. That is flat out wrong.

But we have such a thing as an attempt to preserve our nations music, the preservation of historical music. So that is where I am coming from on this topic. If you want to listen to the lastest hit by the Dixie Chicks then I think you should go out and buy a copy, Support the groups currently on the "top ten" radio stations. If you want a Beatles classic like "Lucy in the sky with diamonds" then buy it at a store or from someone who has a used copy.
But what if you want "Your Feets Too Big" by the Beatles? Yes, they recorded it in Germany. You can find it at a shared files site but most likely not at your local Walmart store. What if you want the original version by the people who first recorded "Heartbreak Hotel" ( the Cadets ) instead of the copycat version done by Elvis Presley and others? Well, forget Walmart, go to the shared files webpages and sooner or later you will get it. That's what I am talkin' about.

The guy next door to Walmart who is giving away the free stuff got it all at this acution, he only paid 25 dollars for it all because no one was in the mood to bid on boxes with unseen contents. He took the stuff home and found a few hundred dollars worth of things he wanted to keep, and he sold something for 25 dollars. So then he said "what the heck, the rest is all basically free stuff that I have so I will give it all away because I do not want to store it around my house".

And so someone buys some CDs and enjoys them all, and then says "I would not loose my investment if I upload these songs on the internet, then others can enjoy them for free - what the heck? Nothing to loose. They sold it to me, it is mine, I can do what I want with it. If I sit out in parking lot and play the music real loud so everyone can hear it - am I stealing? If the whole world can hear my CD playing over their computers, am I stealing? I am not selling tanglable physical property or giving away such. I am playing loud music, boom boom ka-boom over the internet. If I buy a CD I have the right to play it anywhere or on anything I want to play it on (as long as I do not distrub the peace).

So what the heck. Turn it up, turn it on, and party on down.

[Technosoul]

Quote by: abub downloading music is nothing but a pain. more often than not, the sound quality is horrible and you end up with permanent spyware on your computer.

There are hazards to downloading anything - or even to open e-mails, that is why you make sure you have a fire wall and virus protections in place and updated.

Downloading music can be a pain. Sometimes the quality is not as great as it could be. Sometimes it is. Some people share songs that are incomplete (cut off half way through the song), or where they do things to ruin the song on purpose. Recording companies do that a lot to discourage people from downloading - by listing a lot of defective songs. A lot of time the person sharing the file will give the wrong name of the artist or the wrong song title. And so you end up sending a large precentage of items you download to the "round file" trash can. Sometimes you can log on and not find a single song you are interested in, and that can be extremely time consuming. Sometimes the blank CDs you buy on sale are poorly made and they don't work right. Some songs are re-mastered such that they no longer sound like the orginals that you remember. I have lots of gripes about this new technology, and enjoyed the old days of collecting plastic LPs and records much better. I have not downloaded anything of late due to the big crack down after Ashcroft went after votes for Republicans in Hollywood.

[abub]

i use itunes. it's safe, easy, lets you preview all of the songs before you download them. youtube and myspace are also good previewing sites. the only way i'll "steal" music is if somebody copies a cd for me, and that has happened only a few times.

anyways, consider me old-fashioned, but i listen to the radio a whole lot. the major stations around here are cutting back on commercials and mixing things up more as of late.

[Sarah22]

I prefer buying the CD over using iTunes.
If the CD has 15 tracks, is only $10, and you get the lyrics insert,
why spend $1/ song on iTunes?

[abub]

individual songs are $0.99. whole albums are generally $10.

[Sarah22]

Quote by: abub individual songs are $0.99. whole albums are generally $10.

Oh, that makes sense then! :)

[Technosoul]

Quote by: Sarah22 I prefer buying the CD over using iTunes. If the CD has 15 tracks, is only $10, and you get the lyrics insert, why spend $1/ song on iTunes?

With the right software you can download music from many websites for free, no cost at all. That is where the debate comes in about "stealing copyrighted songs". Once the songs are downloaded on your computer you can make your own CDs and get as many as 21 songs on each disc. You can put only the songs you like and in the order you want. The programs also have methods for printing your own CD labels and inserts. iTunes and such pay-to-download webpages offer only the standard hits and the classics that are in the greatest demand. They do not offer for downloading the relatively unknown titles that collectors might be seeking to have.

It is legal to sell the software needed for downloading free music.
It is legal to operate a webpage that offers a space for shared music files.
The only ones getting fined for the "crime" are those who use those legal systems being offered to the public. The downloaders. Not fair.