BF2S Forums Music Piracy - as bad as the media portrays?

B.Schuss wrote:

the problem the classic music industry has, is that it has yet to fgure out what the sales structure for the new millennium will be. Most of it is centered around traditional sales via big retailers, and since everyone wants their share, CD prices are much higher than they should be.

Lots of people still buy CD's, but the question is, for how long ?

This is the crux of the problem, and the reason why so-called 'piracy' is on the rise. In the new millenium, with technology and 'teh Internetz' making free-downloads more accessible to members of the general public (no more newsgroups and IRC, now there's user-friendly P2P,massive torrent networks etc.), the record industry is facing problems because it refuses to change with the times.

Nowdays, people don't want to be charged an overpriced, extortionate amount for a redundant and inferior form of media. People no longer see the justification in paying £15 for a CD, when it is obvious that the cost per unit is FAR less than this. The profit markup on albums is huge, and the record companies have been laughing all the way to the bank for the past decade, simply because we had no other real alternatives. Now that online-buying and free online methods have become popular, they're complaining and are trying to make examples out of a few 'criminals'- in order to scare the majority of consumers into still buying their crappy CD's.

Is it a moral problem? I've downloaded 120Gb+ of music, been kicked off 2 ISP's for heavy network usage, and have even been sent a cease and desist letter by one ISP because they monitored my 'alarming' P2P-port usage. I still sleep at night, and I still regularly download new material. Want to know why? Because I own merchandise (t-shirts etc.) and go to the gigs of every artist that I care for. This supports the artists themselves far more than throwing £15 quid at some suited fat-cats ever will.

Even though the record industry is trying to develop means of giving consumers what they want over the Internet, and also more recently via mobile-phone networks, I think that now people have seen just how easy it is to attain music for free, the main damage has already been done. There will always be the group of people that feel 'guilty', or obligated to pay for their music, and they will always continue to be law-abiding citizens on this matter. However, on the grander scale of things, I think a social and cultural change is taking place in which people actually don't want to pay for that shiney disc, that printed booklet, and those 'limited edition LP's anymore. And, no amount of technology (such as DRM) will ever stop the file-sharing community from continuing on with their actions.

Last edited by Uzique (2007-12-08 19:42:20)

All I can say is:


F*CK THE RIAA


Yep, gonna get that printed on a t-shirt because I hate those ass-water drinking cluster fucks.  I mean really, who the hell sues a dead person??????

konfusion wrote:

Wouldn't it just be easier to tax whatever music devices you use to listen to music, like they do with computers already, and the Microsoft Zune? I mean, let's face it, piracy is inevitable. What you have to do is find ways to go around that...

-konfusion

The government is in no position to enforce a tax to pay a private corporation.  Especially when legal channels to recover damages exist already.  Who says that I will definetly listen to music on an MP3 player that is part of the RIAA cartel?  If I didn't, the tax would be entirely unjustified.

By the way, I didn't pay any tax on my computer or zune (I actually own one...) to pay for music piracy.  I think Canadians pay a tax like that on recordable media.

Last edited by SenorToenails (2007-12-08 22:14:38)

konfusion wrote:

Actually, consider the regional changes on the DVD drive. You have to pay for more regional changes, and that money goes to the local legal organization for media. Computer companies have to invest in legal organizations for music as well as film.

I don't live in Canada. I live in the UK, atm. But this is definitely something that we have worldwide. You probably aren't aware of it, but there are certain costs for the CD/DVD drive alone.

-konfusion

No no, I am aware of the regions, and I think they are bullshit.  That's why I use AnyDVD, which removes the regions, ads, encryption, etc...  In the US, I don't need to switch regions often, and I have NEVER changed regions ever before.  And if I did need to pay a fee, it would not be to the government of the US, but to some corporation.  By the time that ever happened, I would just buy a second drive, or get a region free one.  I hear they exist somewhere.

Edit:

The only tax I would pay on a drive is sales tax, which is only levied by a business with a presence in New York State.  I buy my hardware from a company in California, so I didn't even pay that.

Last edited by SenorToenails (2007-12-08 22:27:14)