The music industry killed Napster. Now what is in store for Kazaa, Bearshare, etc.?

God! I know! It just makes me so mad when people shut down services that give me free access to music and movies. It rages me. What the {censored} am I going to do now? No more free access?! What are they thinking?! Its a total injustice! It violates my rights as a person who dosent wanna pay for {censored}!

Well let's just hope they shut them all down. I'm sick and tired of having to come up with excuse over why artists and their labels should have the right to control their distribution.

Or as long as you have to pay for a car, a book, a computer and a house, getting music for free will be an injustice.

And there goes Audiogalaxy: http://www.riaa.com/PR_story.cfm?id=520

If someone wants to put their stuff on the internet and give it away, or stand on the streetcorner and hand out CDs to passersby, for that matter, they're welcome to have at it. It's when they do it with my stuff or anyone else's without permission that they are in trouble for, and rightly so. As for the old tired excuse, "I like to download stuff to sample so I can buy it later if I like it"...well, baloney. There are few stores anymore that don't offer listening stations, and the fact that these "file sharing'" sites go under as soon as they have to start charging even a minimal amount for downloads proves the fallacy of this reasoning and exposes the real motivation for downloading music, which is to get something for nothing.

what will happen to gnutella, Kazaa, audio galaxy, etc... is yet to be determined. but let me stick in my two sense. i've done some research in this area (i'm finishing my bachelors degree in the recording arts) and the MAIN thing about the Napster case was that all the files that were currently being transferred, or could be at a given time, were listed on napsters server. therefore napster, new of copyrighted works being illegally distributed and copied. The difference with kazaa and the others is that there is no central server. so kazaa can't do anything to stop them, of course they wouldn't want to but this is the legality of it. If kazaa if sued and found guilty than that means ANY ISP can be sued as well. this is because kazaa would be guilty of its users infringing copyrights, even though the can't do anything about it. It specifically states in the Digital Millenium Copyright Act that an ISP can not be held liable for its users using the program for illegal purposes. Hope this helps.

OK so let's say I have a web-site with people coming and chatting about raping young childs and preparing terrorrist attacks. I know that this is going on, of course. Actually, I promoted my web site so that those people come to my site and exchange ideas and datas, maps, info on where to get arms and stuff like that.

But I have no way of doing anything about it. If I'm sued, I'm just going to say that my web site is a public forum where the privacy of the users is respected and they signed an agreement not to talk about those things, so I am not responsible for my user's actions.

So I'm not responsible, you can't sue me.

Exactly!

EngineGuitarist

Junior Member

Registered: Apr 2002

Location: London, UK

Posts: 97

quote:

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Originally posted by 6am eternal

OK so let's say I have a web-site with people coming and chatting about raping young childs and preparing terrorrist attacks. I know that this is going on, of course. Actually, I promoted my web site so that those people come to my site and exchange ideas and datas, maps, info on where to get arms and stuff like that.

But I have no way of doing anything about it. If I'm sued, I'm just going to say that my web site is a public forum where the privacy of the users is respected and they signed an agreement not to talk about those things, so I am not responsible for my user's actions.

So I'm not responsible, you can't sue me.

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Exactly!

__________________

i like my women like i like my coffee: tied up in a sack and thrown over the back of a donkey by Juan Valdez.

That sounds so typically AMERICAN... finding new ways to shirk personal responsibility for ones own actions while persuing moral-less economic gain in the name of free enterprise and gross capitalism...

What he's saying is if they're able to shut down all of these services, people will have legal justification for suing websites for the illegal things its users do. In his extreme case, a rape victim could sue the website, even though the website legally had a disclaimer that was supposed to keep them from that very thing. While that sounds like it may be somewhat justified in that example (a website literally giving a "how-to" on rape that is), the lengths this kind of thing could lead to would cause a great deal of harm to the internet and to free speech.

While the RIAA and the labels often use artists to be spokesmen for the cause against downloading music, it's simply a marketing technique. If labels cared about what kind of money artists were making, they would give them fair royalties, no matter how well established they were. The simple fact is, labels don't care about artists, and the only reason they press this issue is because it cuts into their profits, which are, despite what labels might let you think, enormous. The music industry has yet to give people a way to "preview" albums properly; how many people buy CD's because they hear a few good songs, only to find out that the bulk of the album isn't very good? When CD's were introduced, people who bought players were assured that eventually, CD's would be cheaper than cassettes, because they're extremely cheap to produce. Now, I work in retail, and have a good idea of what CD's sell for, and while the new sale CD's that are guaranteed to move millions of units may go on sale for $13, most CD's are around $16-$19 now, which to me, seems to be just a hair lower than the $18-$20 they were back in the 80's. The industry lied to consumers to sell them CD players, and now, consumers have figured out a way to get great sounding music for free, and the labels are crying about it because their profit margin has been effected.

did you guys hear that eminem's new album is getting released a week early because so many people have already downloaded it for free?

and actually, record companies put out about 20 artists a year, 19 of them flop and don't make any money and usually don't even come close to recoupment. it's that one artist who sells millions of records that makes up for all the loss. It's a high risk business.

Hmmmmm I don't know if this makes me a bad guy or not ,But any music I download I LIKE I buy ,if I don't like it ,it goes to the trash can obviously.

I'd say 90% of the mp3s I have are live performance or rare b-sides ,the other 10% I haven't got around to buying yet but will in the future (and have in the past). I like being able to get access to any song I want ,which may not always be avalible locally and giving it a try. I think Kazaa etc can be used in a pretty honest way , i think it would be a backwards step in a way to lose it.

Of course there are people that abuse it , i really find it funny when people scan album covers , i think if you put in that much effort go buy the c.d for {censored}s sake.....

You gotta look athe big picture as well ,how many c.ds have nickleback sold? People are still buying c.ds by the boatload.

The real injustice is the record companies structure on artists,they are some truely evil {censored}ers.If they gave a {censored} about signing quality they may do better than 1 outta 20 hits.

No, it's not that they only sign 1 out of 20 good acts, it's that they only PROMOTE 1 out of 20. Friday night on 20/20, they did an article about this. The labels pay to have songs played on the radio. If they don't pay, the songs don't get played. They don't pay for all their artists, folks. They decide who makes it. Period. And that is what has to change.

Right on. One of my good friends likens it to posting on the internet directions to all the Mercedes dealers in the country, with detailed maps of their location, inventory, alarm circuitry, security personnel, and where the keys are kept, and then having a little disclaimer: "Hey, don't steal anything!"

The real injustice is the record companies structure on artists,they are some truely evil {censored}ers.If they gave a {censored} about signing quality they may do better than 1 outta 20 hits.

It may in fact be an injustice, but it is quite beside the point of whether downloading their material ffree of charge is legal or fair. No one holds a gun to anyone's head and makes them sign a record deal.

,yself being a person employed as a working musician,,, I would prefer if my music were available on the internet, that I be PAID every time it's downloaded,,,,, just like gigs,, I don't work for free,,,,

I have no problem with free sample sound bytes, that seems fair, and more than enough for a person to tell whether they will like something well enough to buy it....

name me one thing out there that you guys do for a living that you think you should do for free?

yes, the record companies, but if you think they are messed up you've never heard stories from a promotion agency. Those are the guys who get the money from the record company and then make deals with radio stations to play songs. If there weren't promotion agencies it would be illegal. HAHA! a friend of mine works at a pretty big agency and he has told me some messed up {censored}.

I don't know if this is right, but I believe CD sales are down 5-6% overall from a year ago, and the major labels ascribe this to people downloading and burning their own CD's. I'd like to know the demographics of these people, I'm guessing males in the 12-16 age bracket accounts for a hell of a lot of it, and If I was in that group, I'd probably be downloading as well. The reason I buy all my music from stores is because there is a lot of competition in my area and theres always a ton of discounting going on for the stuff I'm interested in (I usually pay around $8 per CD) - it's so much less hassle just walking up the street and handing money over than firing up Kazaa(with it's nasty Spyware) and waiting for somebody to get online with the songs I want to get.

isn't the economy down quite a bit from last year?

Theres alot of {censored} that has went down lately ,including 9/11 ,c.d burning ,no decent rock bands.

I kinda meant that the record companies COULD start to think of a way to use the net,instead of just trying to get back there power and use there minds to make a difference for everyone

. i once thought this would be a cool idea ,i'll try to work it out to US dollars...

Artist A has a c.d ,12 songs on it ,you can either download the songs seperately for say $1 each or the disk for say $10 (this is rough ,REMEMBERING you ain't getting the disk or packaging so the price should be lower) The extra charge for songs would mean ,buying the album would be a better deal THUS making artists work harder towards making a decent disk instead of a "single with 11 more tracks"

Plus they could {censored} off this "artist only get's royalties for X number of tracks and no more" bull{censored} scam they have got now.

yself being a person employed as a working musician,,, I would prefer if my music were available on the internet, that I be PAID every time it's downloaded,,,,, just like gigs,, I don't work for free,,,,

I aggre with what you say but i still think if you download the track and it sucks you shouldn't have to pay if you trash can it. It's kinda like charging people at listening booths ( i know they don't get to keep it but....), maybe if you could download the track at a lower bitrate for free and had to pay for the top quality one that would solve it?

Look at it this way ,most muso's ARE playing for free until they sell enough disks to pay overhead ,while the companies get $$$$ straight away.

Sometimes I think i would rather give my music away for free instead of selling 100,000 copies ,be broke and make money for someone else.

I just really, wholeheartedly and completely like to steal music and not pay for it.

Shut down ANYTHING you want RIAA, there's always newsgroups (which you don't even seem to know about), pirate servers, ghost FTP and a whole network of people who are smarter and better at stealing than you are at protecting your bottom lines.

God bless the pirates! ARGH!

I understand what you mean about try before you buy... I'm pretty sure if you hear 30 seconds of a song,, you will know whether you like it well enough to buy it.... just like in the record stores,, I NEVER hear the whole disc in the record stores anyways,, not EVERY track, not even just one track from end to end,, I just skim thru,, seldom over about 15-20 seconds worth of each song...

in the near future,, we'll see a lot of downloading for pay EACH track of a song,,IMHO it's a bad idea,, but, I guess there is no use fighting that,, although,, I prefer to have a hard copy of the discs myself,,, with ALL the tracks,,,, what's hot today is cold tomorrow,, and I want to be able to go back and appreciate the "B" sides as they were called, back in the day... the obscure material is often the best,, RADIO POPULARITY has no common sense about what's played.....

as far a musicians playing for free basically, if we're talking about signed musicians with "recording contracts" who must sell several platinum CDs before seeing real profit,, I say,,, READ the FINE PRINT,,, don't sign to a bad deal,,,,,I have no sympathy for them,, they screwed themselves....(they will however,, make $$$ for the rest of their life IF their song is good enough to be played as a "classic)

as far as indepentant musicians,, who play for free,, they should all be rounded up and SHOT... they're wayyy too stupid to make it in the music business anyways....or just don't care about the business,, just their own personal pleasure....send them to siberia to jack off with each other....

SWINGSET,, nothing personal to you,,, but,,, what do you DO for a living? do you do it FREE???? you want everyone STEALING from you?

I totally agree , i would rather have a full c.d with artwork etc than a mp3 c.d (I only have one mp3 c.d and i'm buying the disk at the end of this month,its very hard to get). But it would be good if you only like one song or more song/s of a album but they aren't released as singles or the rest of the album blows.

Plus if downloading/purchasing ever became bigger it's going to hurt retailers,distribution etc.

Actually it probably would be a lot more profitable for the record companies if they just did sell by download,they may like that scum bags.....

I care about the business aspect 100% , I might have been a bit unclear ,but I guess what i mean to say is I would rather give stuff away for free than make someone else rich off my hard work (which i basically do at my job anyway but music is a lot more precious to me than work) , I wouldn't sign to a {censored}ty deal unless it was maybe Fred Durst's label ,knowing that anything he signs sells {censored}loads anyway I mean sure you get to tour and play for people which i would love ,but I am harldy going to drop my standard of living for a fat label exec

I think bands should have rarer stuff for download on there websites ,whether it be live stuff ,b-sides or japanese tracks and sell them off there ,that would be cool.

Napster was a totally political issue. Did you ever see the movie Tucker ? The record industry is way behind the times. Their still using 80's technology for distributing music.

Do you know how much the record companies would have to spend to keep up with MP3 techology ? Quite a bit. Probably better to crush MP3's as opposed to trying to keep up with it.

Your analogy to "Tucker" is flawed. It is not the technology that is being ripped off and given away for nothing, it is the finished product that someone else paid for to produce. Your analogy would be more accurate if you would have said that Tucker was stealing cars from big automakers, slapping his logo on them and giving them away in exchange for a finder's fee.

GIVE ME ALL THE SONGS I WANT FOR FREE!!!!

BUT DONT GIVE ANYBODY MY SONGS FOR FREE!!!!!!

what if you downloaded only music that you used to have in the past but dont have any more? like if you paid for it the first time you had it like a tape that got stolen would you be really bad if you downloaded the album for free?

huh?