Pirating, us and the future.

It's like arguing: it's bad because it's illegal because it's bad.

...I'll put something forward...

The ruling elites in Europe about the time of the creation of the printing press were keeping the lower-class uneducated and stupid so that they may obey, the invention of the printing press threatened their position. Books such as the bible were copied and printed on the new printing presses (previously, the books were written by hand by train expert scribes), books that were especially illegal to be printed were the booklist of the the new press operators...

...basically back then the printer operators were the pirates of their day, they were told not to copy the books, the rulers said it that way...(quoteth) "It's bad because it is illegal because it is bad"...the printing could not be stopped.

...this helped the spread of new ideas, literacy, and basically elvolved society from the old feudal system with a king at the top, nobles somewhere in the middle and peasants at the bottom...culture evolved.

This isn't much different, except now a much larger percentage of people in the world can read and write and have to be controlled with much more defined law...

Piracy - as long as their is media to rip, burn and share - cannot be stopped, the entities that are bigger than we can imagine are on the backfoot, the truly weak ones, the ones that hide behind expensive lawyers, deep pockets, and tiny intricacies in law, they are the enemy of a generation of copyright infringers...

...and in the nature of a manifesto....

...PIRATES OF THE WORLD...UNITE!

...yes I love excercising my right to freedom of speech!
 
BassDriver, the problem with that theory is that music is already available to all at a modest price, and if literature had been spread around for free then would most of the greatest books of our time ever had been written? i doubt it... I'm being hypocritical here, but the music business still had to be a business or its nothing at all.
 
Now you all can say that it's a matter of priorities where we put our money.

Agreed, i prioritise my musical knowledge and skill above my moral standpoints, and however wrong that may be, thats just my priorities... Although as i grow up i have more money than i used to, and i DO buy more music now that i have the funds. Which tells me i dont just steal because i can, but its worth stealing when i can't afford the alternative...
 
Which tells me i dont just steal because i can, but its worth stealing when i can't afford the alternative...

I don't think I can count how many times I've downloaded and album, listened to it while waiting for a paycheck, and then went out and bought it.

I love having the actual product in my hand rather than a file on my computer.
 
Agreed, i prioritise my musical knowledge and skill above my moral standpoints, and however wrong that may be, thats just my priorities... Although as i grow up i have more money than i used to, and i DO buy more music now that i have the funds. Which tells me i dont just steal because i can, but its worth stealing when i can't afford the alternative...

exactly the way i think about it. if a band/artist was totally opposed to having their album downloaded for free and came out and said it then ofcourse i would respect their wishes and not get it at all/until i've heard it from one of my friends.

these are the thoughts from matt bellamy of MUSE (taken from lily allens blog - the one about file sharing):

"My current opinion is that file sharing is now the norm. This cannot be changed without an attack on perceived civil liberties which will never go down well. The problem is that the ISPs making the extreme profits (due to millions of broadband subscriptions) are not being taxed by the copyright owners correctly and this is a legislation issue. Radio stations and TV stations etc have to pay the copyright owners (both recording and publishing) a fee for using material they do not own. ISPs should have to pay in the same way with a collection agency like PRS doing the monitoring and calculations based on encoded (but freely downloaded) data. Broadband makes the internet essentially the new broadcaster. This is the point which is being missed.

Also, usage should have a value. Someone who just checks email uses minimal bandwidth, but someone who downloads 1 gig per day uses way more, but at the moment they pay the same. It is clear which user is hitting the creative industries and it is clear which user is not, so for this reason, usage should also be priced accordingly. The end result will be a taxed, monitored ISP based on usage which will ensure both the freedom of the consumer and the rights of the artists - the loser will be the ISP who will probably have to increase subscription costs to compensate, but the user will have the freedom to choose between checking a few emails (which will cost far less than a current monthly subscription) and downloading tons of music and film (which will cost probably a bit more than current subscription, but not that much more)."

this pretty much sums up my opinion entirely. i'm not really sure how things are going in the U.S. (not my territory) but in the UK things will hopefully get better within the next few years, it mainly depends how much politicians get involved.
 
I mean, screw (and I mean screw with an F in a very emotionally loaded way) exploriong the issue, I like to see people forward positions.

Screw THAT, we get enough of that as it is that's why the nickname is the 'rantosphere'.
So one guy here can keep it in his pants for a while and actually give us some actual information and clear up some stuff that people don't even understand very well and we want him to be a rnat-o-bot?!?
 
...basically back then the printer operators were the pirates of their day, they were told not to copy the books, the rulers said it that way

Hell, even I know this one. No they weren',t copyright piracy is a property thing, government censorship isn't property based, doesnt even need a property concept at all to censor.
 
How else can you build an informed position on an issue without analysing, as objectively as possible, the facts?

There is a moral, ethical side to this discussion, but that does not mean that we should use knee-jerk, emotive responses to something that should be clearly and rationally analysed.

i just read 'the' post on the last page and i agree entirely. i dislike talking about, well, anything without knowing facts. which is the exact reason i won't go into morals regarding this issue (there are many people who will do that for me). we could go round forever, and never get anywhere.
i'm much more interested to hear what drummer-ish knows about this stuff tbh. some of his replies have been golden. as rude as it sounds, what he personally believes (moral) is of little relevance (to me). people who can be in the middle are the best!

also, i'd much rather speak to rational people and those who know and understand the guidelines within which we work. the opinions i value most highly are from those who are dealing with this stuff day in day out as their primary source of funding. whether that be musicians, bands, managers, promoters, agents, record labels or anyone else involved - high powered, indie, struggling - they are all relevant. and the opinion of the consumer is relevant too. as long as the person in question can give you some context for where they are coming from that makes sense then it is all good.
obviously lawyers are included too, but that is just obvious.

my personal POV is that once you understand the guidelines you can try to work out ways to make changes that will benefit yourself/friends in the long run. new streams of revenue, finances, etc.
good times.
 
i just read 'the' post on the last page and i agree entirely. i dislike talking about, well, anything without knowing facts. which is the exact reason i won't go into morals regarding this issue (there are many people who will do that for me). we could go round forever, and never get anywhere.
i'm much more interested to hear what drummer-ish knows about this stuff tbh. some of his replies have been golden. as rude as it sounds, what he personally believes (moral) is of little relevance (to me). people who can be in the middle are the best!

also, i'd much rather speak to rational people and those who know and understand the guidelines within which we work. the opinions i value most highly are from those who are dealing with this stuff day in day out as their primary source of funding. whether that be musicians, bands, managers, promoters, agents, record labels or anyone else involved - high powered, indie, struggling - they are all relevant. and the opinion of the consumer is relevant too. as long as the person in question can give you some context for where they are coming from that makes sense then it is all good.
obviously lawyers are included too, but that is just obvious.

my personal POV is that once you understand the guidelines you can try to work out ways to make changes that will benefit yourself/friends in the long run. new streams of revenue, finances, etc.
good times.

I like analysing things too and like to know facts but the legal side of things only affects the "illegal" part of the "it's bad because it's illegal because it's bad". We can analyse the law all we want but we will never get the full picture that way. Why is copying binary code (withouth financial profit as motive) considered stealing and an unethcal thing to do? On what ethical theory is it based and how much critique can it actually take?

I have studied practical ethics in the university. It's the same thing here. It's nice to know what different things are based on and it's nice to break them in to smaller parts but that doesn't necessarily mean we can tell what is the right thing to do. Actually it usually just makes the grey area larger.
 
I like analysing things too and like to know facts

That's where those more academic posts are real handy, I mean in this thread we had MISinformation like that lifeforms could be copyrighted. It's just wrong (I don't mean morally, I mean as a fact, they can't)
so out of the chute we didn't just have little factual knowledge, we had NEGATIVE factual knowledge

So, with the political side of the thread we could rail against lifeform copyrights!!...even though they aren't copyrighted
 
I like analysing things too and like to know facts

That's where those more academic posts are real handy, I mean in this thread we had MISinformation like that lifeforms could be copyrighted. It's just wrong (I don't mean morally, I mean as a fact, they can't)
so out of the chute we didn't just have little factual knowledge, we had NEGATIVE factual knowledge - we didn't have a firm footing to even BEGIN the conversation.

So, on the political side we could gnash our teeth and beat our chests rail against lifeform copyrights!!....................even though they aren't copyrighted
 
That's where those more academic posts are real handy, I mean in this thread we had MISinformation like that lifeforms could be copyrighted. It's just wrong (I don't mean morally, I mean as a fact, they can't)
so out of the chute we didn't just have little factual knowledge, we had NEGATIVE factual knowledge

So, with the political side of the thread we could rail against lifeform copyrights!!...even though they aren't copyrighted

Umm I'm fairly certain you can patent genetic code (my better half is a biotechnician) and for the common people that could be "copyrighting lifeforms".
 
Umm I'm fairly certain you can patent genetic code (my better half is a biotechnician) and for the common people that could be "copyrighting lifeforms".

umm, and the common people would be wrong and that's the problem

patents and copyrights aren't the same I think it was already brought up but how you get them is different, what you can do with them is different, what they cover is different, what you need to show to get them is different, how long they last is different, what laws cover them are different.
It's kind like the cure for cancer bit..'cancer is cancer is cancer' -- yeah, until you have to actually work with it
and paradiddle and flamacue are "those drum rudiments" -- but they ain't the same thing (I can do one, but not the other :D )

So then when we have this misinformation and we want to apply it politically, we get GIGO -- we get political effort based on stuff that simply isn't true

and when we dismiss it with 'close enough for the common person' then we just perpetuate the wrong understanding
 
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JPW, i have no idea. i have no real interest in that area so i have no prior knowledge with which i can form an opinion. as for ethics, i don't know either. i'm not the right person to ask about that stuff. :)

as for the 'right thing to do', i don't know that either. i know which route i am going to (try) to take when it comes to music and piracy and the future, but that doesn't mean it is any more valid than someone elses. i'm not a black and white thinker in general, so i really can't give any concrete answers. but i won't pretend that i want too either.
 
If it's all right, I'd like to steer us back to the original topic.

We had a lecture recently from one of the top guys from a major (music) publishing company. One point he made was that we (the public, musicians, almost everyone) often make the mistake of saying that it is the music industry that has been suffering recently. What is more right to say is that it is the record industry - music publishing is doing as well as it ever has done.

This means that money is still being made from the other copyright, namely not the right to the recording, but the right to the authoring. Money (if that's what's important) is made from such things as television, film, advertising, internet and radio (I think in the States, artists don't get paid royalties for radio play but that isn't the case in the UK and Europe).
 
If it's all right, I'd like to steer us back to the original topic.

We had a lecture recently from one of the top guys from a major (music) publishing company. One point he made was that we (the public, musicians, almost everyone) often make the mistake of saying that it is the music industry that has been suffering recently. What is more right to say is that it is the record industry - music publishing is doing as well as it ever has done.

This means that money is still being made from the other copyright, namely not the right to the recording, but the right to the authoring. Money (if that's what's important) is made from such things as television, film, advertising, internet and radio (I think in the States, artists don't get paid royalties for radio play but that isn't the case in the UK and Europe).

Radio does indeed pay publishing.

From everything I've read, publishing is indeed down for tradition album sales, but it's up for things like Rock band, Guitar hero, video game soundtracks, and other wise new areas that didn't exist before.

Also, band artists/bands that 20 years ago would never let their songs get used for an advertising campaign are signing up because it makes up for the money lost in album sales.
 
publishing is basically the thing you never sign away.. what uni are you at youan?
 
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