RIAA, Kazza, Napster, the law & you - views of an artist with a BA Mus & PSCI

------------------------------
Amazing Trade wrote:

I don't for anybody. I am a multimedia and internet technology student. It just seems to be people that download music all the time and don't pay for it are just freeloaders that want somthing for nothing.

Well you can have your viruses etc, I personaly find it much more fun hunting for that rare record in a record shop.

A lot of these heavy downloaders also seem to do anything to justify why its legal, just like ilegal drug users do. They spend all their time justifiying why canibis is legal etc when its clearly not.

Anyway the 1gb per day cap is still there and ISps are getting tougher on that all the time.

-------------------------------


I'm a busy guy. I'm a 27 year old composer, arranger, writer, poet, musician, and teacher - that's my musical life. I collect CD's. I'm passionate about my collection. I can't have one Miles Davis CD, or one John Coltrane, or even just one Metallica, Incubis, Rancid, Danzig, Big Wreck, Bjork... I need complete discograhies. Currently, for instasnce, I have every recording on this earth of Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonius Monk, and Bill Evans. Those are my major complete collections. And you know what, I had to do a lot of little record shop hunting too - even some custom orders in the end. I once worked for a company called Ocean's Cases - they build hardshell cases for musical equipment - flight cases. I proudly designed and bought a flight case to house my now 857 CD collection - to make it more portable - to move when I move.

I've been performing for 20 years now, recording for 12, teaching for 9 - been writing forever. I do my part to add to the lifeblood of this business. I completed a Jazz degree after 2 years studying classical privately. I grew up playing mostly metal, blues, funk, and latin music. I've made amplifiers after taking an electrical engineering course from the town's community college during what I consider a hiatus between my highschool and university years. I've proteged as an apprentice under Don Stellard and the late Don Mallory - two very large figures in audio engineering - if you follow that sort of thing. My grade 12 year I was pulled from my music classes to teach a grade 7 music class - I was even given a staff parking spot and a 95 for the report card - they just dupliucated my previous years mark. I've performed for countless charities and fundraisers, co-op projects - and ya, I've smoked a joint or two in my time.

I build custom computers on the side. I'm currently on one I built my aunt who is disabled. It's a 3.2Ghz P4 watercooled demon with 1GB of DDR433 Ram and 370GB of hard drive space on 2 drives. I'm currently working on putting all my CD's on here so I have a backup - at least in mp3 form.

I'm also aspiring to become a lawyer. I have an advanced major in Political Science that was a joint major in my Jazz program. I also have an honours in Philosophy. I've published a thesis on Liberalism as a Defense of Native Self-Government. It's enjoyed widespread success.



So excuse me if I take a little offense to you writing me up as a slakjawed drug addict freeloader because I support filesharing. Who are you?

Dragon_Amor:

do you have a copy of your thesis that i could read somewhere?

I hate to have to do this. I feel bad about it, but I feel it needs to be done. I don't like to pick on people with such a weak grip on the English language, or such a short memory span that they forget that all the sentences add up to a larger picture - especially when that larger picture isn't very far off of the stance of the person who choose to deconstruct my writing line by line trying to find error within it, or trying to interpret it as if it we're expressing something other than it does. It's juvenile, and perhaps juvenile on my part to take this effort as well. God forgive for picking on the less fortunate.

I'll try to help you point by point caz, we got a little more in common than you managed to realize, even if you didn't do your homework, ok?

-------------------------------
Your first quote of me makes absolutely no sense.

Your second quote of me makes absolutely no point.

Your third quote of me, you use to try and say means that I don't support filesharing, on which you are dead wrong. Amazing Trade, I think you found your freeloader. And by the way, gross industry sales haven't gone down, they have gone up - do your homework. At least we agree that filesharing is widespread and should be - I just don't understand how you didn't realize we agreed on this.

Your fourth quote of me, you argue that revenue was not the cause of their recoil - but instead it was because they are an egocentrical industry that seeks money and power. Hey dipshit - you just said what I said in a way that wastes a lot more words saying it colorfully. Do you even know the word revenue? I have to wonder... Anyone with an IQ above room temperature would realize that revenue means "money aquired", thus derives their profit, growth, influence, i.e. clout (read: power).

Your fifth quote is flawed only because your assumption that sales are down is simply untrue. The "mass-marketing bullshit", as you so eloquently put it, attempts to promote the idea that sales are down. Since I as well do not buy into the "mass-marketing bullshit", I do not believe - not as a matter of personal sentiment (which could yeild similiar results), but as a belief reinforced by research. You may want to re-read the part where I explain that sales are down in their top 40 acts, but not overall - the former of which they base their claim. If you don't buy into "mass-marketing bullshit", why do you espouse it? Kudos on living in the present, by the way. That's great.

Your sixth quote you believe is a logical quote for which to restate my acknowledgement that their top 40 acts returned less on investiment because it wasn't nearly as primary a sales item as it used to be. Ya, they made less money ON TOP 40 ACTS. Not less money overall. Dude, I'm waiting for you here on earth, ok? Next time, try not to isolate the quote from the context if you want to understand the total message. It will keep you from thinking I'm contradicting myself when I haven't.
--------------------------------------------------------
Now for your second set of nonesense
--------------------------------------------------------

Your first quote of me you find fault as you fail to realize what an enormous source of revenue marketing is. Statistics is the raw data, the life blood, of marketing. Tracing sales, and movement of media in general, is central to accurate statistics. The less they can track, the less accurate their gathered data. The less accurate their gathered data (read: statistics - just trying to make sure you can follow this), then the less effective their marketing. They don't care about fulfilling their ego's over knowing who's looking at crotches, they are concerned with filling the pockets on either side of their own.

Your second quote of me here is followed by a criticism that claims I believe no law suits have been made, and then admits to understanding what I said. I have already mentioned the lottery-like law suits designed to scare people into obeying unenforceable laws. Sorry I lost you little buddy.

Your third quote of me here makes it clear that you have never heard a Bill Hicks show, nor are you familiar with a little flair or artistic lisence being used to candidly clear up points in a message you haven't seemed to understand well in the first place. I'm sorry I overestimated your own comprehensive skills. As you can see, I'm trying not to be annoyed at helping you along toward understanding points I thought did not need clearing up. Take a writing course for more info on the use of style in literature.

Your fourth quote, well, I don't really have an issue with this one. You seem to understand very well that there is enough entrenched within a culture to make those in it similiar enough to have common reaction to certain stimuli, and certain exploits that could apply to many with a high rate of success. Thanks for the color.

Your fifth quote sounds like you are 12. What more should I say about this one? Maybe something like "I know you are but what am I?" Hardly. Grow up a little junior.

Your sixth quote, interestingly, quotes my acknowledgement of the lottery-like law-suits that you claimed earlier I failed to acknowledge. Next.

In your seventh quote you seem to think that obedience, or lack of obedience to the law is akin to suicidal behaviour. Further, I have consistently contended that the industry does fight for it's self-interest. It just so happens that their best interest is diametrically opposed to our best interest within the issue of filesharing. (diametrically opposed means the opposite of - don't want to lose you in all the big scary words).

Your eigth quote of me makes absolutely no sense - maybe you would like to explain that one.

Your nineth quote assumes that the average filesharer never buys a damn thing. You don't think 5 million users of Kazaa alone don't represent a large proportion of each years sales? Don't be so niave.

The rest of your rant is drivel. And by the way, Erik Idle is the only person I quoted from TV. Fuck you for dissing my friends.



To the rest, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I'll be back in a few days so keep this up - it's great.

You're a hypocrite and an idiot. You can't take disagreement. Get over it; you shouldn't be here.

Caz,

I don't know you but I think Dragon Amor seems to be more qualified to offer a judgment than you on just about any subject.

One of the few intelligently written discussions on here gets flamed by you. What do you want, a place where we all slag each other off and talk about nothing but who's got the highest post count and what was on TV last night?

Dragon_Amor: Here are a few points I would like to make about your posts.

N.B. In my view, downloading copyrighted material from the internet, without having paid for it, is theft. And I think, that in the overwhelming majority of cases, stealing is wrong. I don't think that in this case it is right. The fact that everyone else does it, does not bother me: History has shown, that the "majority" has extremely often been wrong.

1) You argue that online file-sharing does NOT damage CD/DVD etc. sales. You say, that the industry only thinks so, but that actually, P2P has made sales-figures rise.
With all due respect, I think the record-label people are better at making market-analysis than you. They are not stupid. They know how to make money. They behave in rational way.
If you were right, if not all, at least some big record labels should have come to the same conclusion than you. As far as I know, they haven't.
Though I must admit, it is not impossible, the chances of you being right here and the vast majority of record labels being wrong is quite slim.

Let's face it: If you can get music for free, those who sell music WILL lose out.
Some people might behave "ideally", by downloading music and then buying the records they like in order to reward the artist, but most people won't. The vast majority of people go for the cheapest option.
At least, that's the assumption modern economic models are based on, and they work pretty well, so they can't be that wrong.

2) You seem to be not particularly fond of record-labels. You argue, that they take all the money for themselves and that artists get very little. Hence, you argue, illegal file-sharing is morally alright, because artists (in your view those who deserve the money) won't lose out and record-labels don't "deserve" the money anyway.

First of all, I would be very surprised if most artists did not get paid as much as they sell. If an artist's paycheck is a function of the number of records sold, he WILL lose out if less people buy his records.

If record-labels were really the parasites you portray them as, the market would have long ago disposed of them. The fact of the matter is, that they are useful. There is a good reason they exist: Making records and selling them is not cheap. Most artists do not have the money to produce records by themselves. Therefore, they need record-labels.

I don't think it's unfair, record-labels take a certain share of the profit. That's the price of the risks they have to take. Besides, artists always agree beforehand to give labels a certain share of the profit.

A song is the artist's intellectual property. He can do with it what he wants. If he chooses to go to a record label and sell his record to them, he is free to do so. Who are you, to say that you can steal his property just because you do not like his choice?

3) You argue that a law that cannot be enforced is not legitimate and should be removed. You put laws banning theft of intellectual property via internet in this category.

Firstly, these laws CAN be enforced. It is not impossible for the government to monitor your online activities and punish you for illegal filesharing.

You probably say, that this is only possible if the state infringes on your civil liberties. Ok, I was just saying they are enforcable.

Exceeding certain speed limits is illegal. Yet the government can only catch a tiny fraction of offenders. If it wanted to catch all or most offenders, it would have to infringe on certain civil liberties.

I think, it's the same with illegal file-sharing: It's enough to catch SOME offenders.

4) Finally, I have a few questions to you:

a) Do you judge the morality of an action by its essence or by its consequences?

b) Do you think stealing intellectual property is better than stealing in a shop?

c) Do you think downloading a copyrighted song you have not paid is theft?

d) Do you have a religion? If so, which one? (sorry, if that's too much of a personal question; I'm agnostic BTW)


Thanks if you've gone through all this. I'd be curious to read your answer, as you seem to be well-informed about the subject.

and caz - don't flatter yourself. zizero made logically constructed points. he had opinions, knew how to communicate them, and knew how to give them weight and merit. what did you say about filesharing? you ranted about me, and don't seem to know much of either. now do what your good at and bark