I support hardworking, earnest musicians on independant ('Indie') labels. They deserve every dollar. I don't care about any major labels losing some dollars. They're the bane of the music industry.

Tupac has a different message and different opinions, but the fact that they both have something to say and some story to tell with their music is the same. But I don't think Tupac is god either, which every wigger/rap fiend does, so hey. I'd rather have Atmosphere over Tupac any day.

I'm actually suprised no one here has taken the real hardline conservative stance against music downloads.

So before wild accusations aflounder that I'm just some old crank who lived when vinyls were mainstream and hunt-and-pecks while typing out this post, I'm a 17 year old high school student who regularly buys music (online or on CD) and rips it onto his computer, for transfer to cd mixes, mp3 players, et. al.

So, I actually don't download music illegally - at all. Dabbled with it for awhile when Napster and the like first came out. But in my opinion, downloading of music, whether from indie artists or the major labels, still in the end corrupts the entire capitalist system. You're taking a product, that somebody (many people actually) have spent hundreds of work-hours on, and a production company (and keep in mind, there are small and independent ones too) invested capital to put out onto the market. So, to receive a product of someone else's labor or money, and not pay the person the price that was requested, would be undermining capitalism, undermining the fundamental economic structure of the United States. Stealing, technically.

Now, keep in mind that music producers aren't doing anything illegal. Sure, you can gripe that a $10 CD is "overpriced" (which is a matter of opinion, and I find a bit more of an excuse than an honest complaint from a generation that puts up with $100+ branded basketball shoes), but there isn't any collusion going on between the major record companies.

So, I'm going to assume, from a legal standpoint, that everyone will agree that it is technically stealing to download music illegally (I'd agree that downloading to try is a bit of a grey area, if you delete it afterwards). Now, is that stealing justified, which seems to be the main argument among most downloaders. I don't remember the figures that well, but I think $3 billion in piracy out of the $9 billion PC/console games industry in 2001 (sticks out because i wrote an article on it once). So that's a 25% decrease in revenues for the industry.

So, what happens when revenues for a company drops by 25%. Most people who download will idiotically scream "take that, rich producers!" But what really happens in any company that has a revenue shortfall? The top brass, CEOs and such don't feel it. They just slash losses. So what if, by downloading music that cuts into music revenues, every worker at a record label gets their salary slashed 25%? From the artists, to the office workers, to the fresh-out-of-college interns, to the janitors that sweep the halls. Better yet, what if 25% of that workforce gets laid off? The decision of the record companies to pass off that loss to the workers, yet, but who prompted them to make that change? Kids who download music off the internet, that would have otherwise bought the music (whether in CD form or online through iTunes or some such).

So what about the job you work at? What if people started swiping Starbucks coffees without paying for them, started driving off the lots with free cars. How would you like to have your salary slashed by a quarter, a half. How would you liked to be laid off, because somone else just felt like they were "entitled" to free drinks, to free cars?

Beyond that, even if the losses come to hit those that are wealthy in the industry, the producers, the the business execs, what makes it wrong that they are wealthy? I think people underestimate the work that business executives do. Sure, they aren't the ones actually making the music, but they do a heck of a lot of work too - maybe not deserving of millions, but they're as essential to rolling the hype machine (getting people interested in these artists' music, especially the new ones, in the first place), and spotting new talent (giving artists a chance to record and publish, which many wouldn't have have if big major labels weren't around). They do a heck of a lot more than janitors in the hallway, or mail-office grunts, to keep the company running, and keep the music producing. Yet while everyone seems eager to stick it to the execs and producers, suddenly we're all sympathetic to blue-collar workers when their unions cry for more benefits?

To claim that it's OK to download music illegal because the profits are going to producers (and artists) that don't need them is completely hypocritical to anyone who believes in capitalism and anyone making a wage. Many people, make a lot of money. You could say, executives make 500k, they don't need that money. So I'm not going to pay for their product. At the same time, I could say, a lot of middle America out there, making 70k, 80k, 90k, 100k+, none of you need that money - you could get by with 30k a year and even less than that, if you really wanted to. In a capitalist system, people make whatever money you could get. If you were suddenly given a 500k job, even if you were grossly overpaid, would you turn it down? Would you complain if suddenly the company decided to dock you a 100k fine? If you made 70k a year, is it in my right to decide that you make too much money, and therefore I have the right to go to your house and rob you out of $40,000? Who are you, to tell me or anyone else, what I should be making?

Ah, now... those few of you whose arguments, lie beyond all of that (which excludes most people, who are just in it for saving 10 bucks on a CD) ... all music should be free, and why can't we all live at subsistence level you say? Now, that there is a legitimate claim, and it's a viewpoint that I really respect it, even if I don't necessarily agree fully with it. However, for most of us, we live in the United States, and as residents here, we abide by its rules. From this viewpoint, unfortunately those are capitalist rules. But on the other side, we also live in a country that goes by democratic rules. So if you believe music should be free, propose a law that puts all music into the public IP domain. Or, as the software industry did, start a GNU-like open-source music movement, and make it easy for musicians to distribute their music for free (like the Mozilla Foundation), while others (like Microsoft) can still sell their product for a price. But at the moment, we play by capitalist rules - the agreed upon ideology is that people should be paid for their intellectual property. If you disagree with that, the country's a democracy, not a dictatorship, and it's open to change if you can pronounce your viewpoint to the populace. But in the meantime, downloading music, this kind of imposed vigilante activism, is the wrong way to try to advance your views.

The capitalist system is inherently corrupt. If people weren't constantly trying to rip each other off, that would be called communism and the economy would collapse. :p

Actually, since downloading music became popular, record sales have been up. I remember seeing taht somewhere. Of course it took into account iTunes and other services like that.

The only time I even feel remotely comfortable downloading music is when the people are unknown on Amazon.com or when I can't find the CD anywhere for under 15 bucks. That being said, I think Floyd, the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and all such oldies are FAR FAR OVERPRICED.

And just because we live in the generation of $100 basketball shoes doesn't mean we can afford $100 basketball shoes.

Oh and Thrawn--your mom. lol

Mm... record sales have been going down every year actually. But you're right, sales from online music stores have been going up considerably every year. I think that the advent of places such as iTunes have really settled one of the major gripes about music, that even I had, of purchasing songs individually.

If only they sold lossless music! Seriously I wouldn't mind downloading a 40mb .wav or a 20-30mb lossless format, even on this 56k

Back in the day, I did some downloading from WinMX, KazaaLite, and Napster. Most of that music is gone now, lost to various reformats. Doesn't really bother me. Other music that I do have illegally I obtained from iTunes being shared on the dorms' network. But since I don't live in the dorms anymore, I don't steal anymore. Despite having grabbed some stuff (Led Zeppelin, Ozzy, CCR, Queen) from others, most of my music is purchased. I would say that less than 15% of the music I have is stolen.

Most recently, I but music from [url=www.magnatune.com]Magnatune[/url], or the local CD Warehouse (now called PMac Music), because they have some good used CDs for cheap. But honestly, the last "mainstream" CD I bought was In Your Honor by the Foo Fighters. Other than that, I really don't purchase mainstream music, at all. Most of it is either classical, big band, used CDs, or Magnatune music.

I think it's ethically okay to download music by dead people. The reason being they don't need to make a living anymore, and any records at this point are just the record companies trying to make more money. And I don't think it's nice to make money off dead people.

Basically when I saw this thread I thought "ethically? No." But then as I turned it over I began to come up with obvious exceptions.

Exception 1: Avril Lavigne*

Exception 2: Dead People

And so on.

*I don't listen to Avril Lavigne but if I did I wouldn't pay for it

Yeah, go right ahead, promote murder. Heh.

>.>

Well that's not necessarily true. Proceeds from Tupac Shakur (who's mentioned somewhere in this) go into a foundation to provide activities for inner-city youth. And post-humous music goes on to the dependents of the artists...

Which brings up the issue of inheritance...

[url]www.allofmp3.com[/url]

It's legal.

pfft. That's like saying it's OK to buy copied computer games in China because you're importing from a country where copyright laws are virtually nonexistant/nonenforced.

True, but they have lossless, and for fairly cheap. So if you wanna reimburse the artist buy it on iTunes, then on Allofmp3 for lossless.

There are bands that I will download a song or two from, but not buy the CD because I only like a couple of their songs. There are some bands, that even though I have already downloaded all of the songs I have by them, I will buy the CD the instant I see it.

Sources for the figures? How did they calculate the losses due to piracy?

To return to the original topic, I download music because I don't have enough money to accomodate my growing interest in music. I've downloaded over 8000 songs in the past, couple of months. I've listened to most of the music (80%) and will eventually have listened to all of it. The fact is I simply cannot afford to pay for that much music.

I don't really care about the artist. You shouldn't neccessarily have to be able to 'live off your music.' It took almost a decade for R.E.M. to be able to quit their day jobs; people shouldn't be dependent on music as a source of income. That's my own opinion, I realize that many of you will disagree or even flame me, but whatever.

I suppose its somewhat ironic that I'll pay money to support the record labels... for example, Dischord. While I've downloaded 8000 songs for free, I've spent several hundred dollars buying records from independent labels. Its not pretense; I'm not trying to be hip by buying indie records, but i genuinely like them.

Yep

What's funny is I don't try to justify music downloading; I just do it. However, I will usually, when I purge, delete songs I really don't care for, and buy the albums I'd like to support and hear more of. And I'm a cheap ******* and won't pay more than 5 dollars for a CD, so it's usually only older CDs.

Thanks SD_RAKISHI. That was a very interesting and well-written read.

I'm going to go ahead and point out here that downloading music illegally is "piracy" in legal terms, not "stealing." Admittedly, most people who make this point are just playing with semantics, but I think it's an important distinction. Most everyone, myself included, believes that stealing is wrong and should be illegal. Not everyone believes piracy should be illegal. There's probably a better way to phrase the explanation I'm about to give, but I'll do my best.

The simplest way of understanding price in a capitalist economy is in terms of supply and demand, and an important attribute separating digital music from more tangible goods like furniture and toothbrushes is that digital music costs almost nothing to reproduce, once the original recording is made. This means that the supply of copies of a given song is limited only by factors such as available disk space -- in other words, the supply of a given song exceeds demand. When supply exceeds demand, prices tend to fall; thus, in a free market, digital music prices would fall to almost zero. Making piracy illegal keeps prices artificially high, and with consumers' financial incentives heavily favoring piracy, combined with the near-impossibility of enforcing piracy laws, the only people who will be willing to paying those artificially high prices are those whose non-financial incentives compel them to do so.

That said, I'm one of those people. I download first, but if I like the music, I always buy the CD eventually. I've bought vastly more music since I started downloading than I ever would have if I'd stuck to just buying. I believe that if I like an artist well enough to keep their music on my hard drive, they deserve my money. Furthermore, I want those artists to continue making music, and they're more likely to do so if their past efforts are successful. I don't, however, buy CDs because downloading the music is illegally, or because I think that it makes sense to charge $13 a CD for a virtually unlimited resource.

I have about 8 or 10 albums I'd love to buy. But I haven't, because I can't justify the expenditure. But I don't download, because I don't need them. If it was food, and I really had no money, that'd be (at least a bit) more justified. But music? Stop treating it as a necessity or some God-given right of ownership, and realize that it's simply a product of someone else's work and a way to entertain yourself.

And, please. "Artists shouldn't rely on music as a single income?" What a load. Great way to make yourself feel better. It's not your right to decide how someone else should make their money (in this specific situation). Legibility of profit aside, if a musician relies on music sales to support him/herself, you're simply removing any and all incentive to continue making music, unless you want to offer him/her a job in place of compensation.

Right on, man. Same here.



People should start using ITunes, and actually buy the individual songs.

[QUOTE=Michael MacFarlane]
The simplest way of understanding price in a capitalist economy is in terms of supply and demand, and an important attribute separating digital music from more tangible goods like furniture and toothbrushes is that digital music costs almost nothing to reproduce, once the original recording is made. This means that the supply of copies of a given song is limited only by factors such as available disk space -- in other words, the supply of a given song exceeds demand. When supply exceeds demand, prices tend to fall; thus, in a free market, digital music prices would fall to almost zero. Making piracy illegal keeps prices artificially high, and with consumers' financial incentives heavily favoring piracy, combined with the near-impossibility of enforcing piracy laws, the only people who will be willing to paying those artificially high prices are those whose non-financial incentives compel them to do so.[/QUOTE]

But the problem here that music, like all media (movies, games, etc.) is that the regular rules of supply and demand don't apply - media isn't a commodoties market, it's an intellectual property (IP) market. For example, what if Edison invented the light bulb, and then the second later, everyone just ripped off his design, and left him with nothing. Sure, they're not "stealing" from anything physical or tangible, but they're stealing his IP - and then what's his incentive to keep on working, and inventing new things?

Even if this was about commodoties market: If I went to Target and stole a CD, or if I just sat at home and downloaded the CD, does that really make a difference? Aren't I still taking the product of someone's labor, without paying them for it?



Right on. People need to stop thinking that they're entitled to music - it's not food or medicine or basic shelter. It's a luxury item. It'd be like us lamenting over how much luxury sedans cost, and then simply stealing them because they're "overpriced".

I agree, and I think the problem is that we insist on treating an IP market like a goods market. We need a different set of rules, and we don't have it -- we just have loose supply controls that allow us to treat music as a material good. The more I think about it, the more I wonder if maybe patronage was a better system.

Anyway, it's not really fair to claim that people who download music are rejecting capitalism. All they're doing is behaving in the very way that economic theory tells us they will.

The problem of patents is another interesting one, and one that I won't claim to have an answer for yet, but I think trying to solve it right now would take us too far from the original topic.



The difference is that if you shoplift from Target, you're also taking a physical product. It may seem like a small difference, but it's large enough that the U.S. legal system uses it to differentiate between theft and piracy.

Money shouldn't ever be someones incentive to make music. I have no interest in listening to music of people who believe that. In addition, i'm not trying to say that someone is a bad person if they rely on music as income. Its moreso a matter of intent. Music is sacred, and it is art and it shouldn't be an industry. A music album isn't simply a product, and its unfortunate that the music industry has turned it into nothing but a product.



Maybe its just entertainment to you, but not to me. Aside from my health and my family, music is the most important part of my life and I can say that comfortably. Once again, music is sacred.
To sum my opinions..



http://www.downhillbattle.org/interviews/ian_mackaye.php

I'm going into the video game industry after I graduate (if all things go according to plan). I have two incentives: one is to make money, the other because I enjoy the art. A person can still treat something as an art that they love and still want to make money off of it. Don't treat someone who wishes to profit off something they enjoy as somehow "less" of an artist.



Treating music as an important part of your life and treating it as something that has to be yours, regardless of whether or not you can afford, are two very different things. You do not need all that music to live. You will not be somehow less of a person if you only have 50 CDs. If you can not afford something that is not vital to your survival, then it's a "too bad" scenario. If you do need music to live, then you need to seek professional help, because you have become physically addicted to soundwaves.

OMG NO I ONLY MADE 5 MILLION ON MY LAST ALBUM BEACUSE OF THE BAD DOWNLOADER PEOPLE


Meanwhile in Africa, uganda, etc children starve whilst celebrities piss away their money for needless things.

They're hypocrites. They say they work hard on the music, and no doubt they do. Music is NOT a necessity to live... But is a 20 million dollar house a means to live as well? or an expensive as hell car?

I'm glad the downloaders have taken somuch from the musicians and movie makers for three simple reasons

1. They don't need more money (I think over a million dollars is a nice chunk of change to live off of)
2. It shows their greed (MORE MONEY MOREMONEY MORE MONEY)
3. It shows their lack of willingness to help others. God knows how many musicians and moviemakers have enough money in their bank accounts to feed starving children in the world for years upon years upon years...Yet they don't help and want YOU to buy their crap so they can get richer.

Er, Temp, most musicians are NOT millionares. Not even close.

I buy albums whenever I have the money and opportunity to do so.

In example; small, unknown bands aren't sold at the local shops - I'd need to travel to amsterdam to get their CD's, and the money to get there already sets me back half a CD.

As well, some music ain't sold here because it's too obscure or there's nobody buying it (think black metal). I'd love to have bought Nattefrost's latest album in example, but the only thing I could find that got close to black metal was Linkin Park. Went to find Depeche Mode's latest, closest I got was HIM. Just shows the suckiness of the local record store.

There's a new store opened here recently though, which sells second-handed CD's - and they've got a lot of relatively unknown metal and 80's. Which is awesome.

...much of which goes to the recording label.



Like marijuana, computers, and an internet connection?



I don't think anyone supports some of the extravagant expenditures of celebrities. But what does their use of the money have to do with whether or not they should receive their asking price for their work? Are CD prices high? Yes, they are. Does that justify taking what you want? No.



I won't disagree with #1. On the point of #2, yes, some people have big heads (such as Vin Diesel's wanting of more money for 2Fast2Furious), but there are others who either a) don't make that much money to begin with b) wish to put it into something more productive, be it other movies to charity organizations.

On point 3...well, that's just a baseless accusation.

No one's said just how MUCH goes to the record label. That's what I find interesting--everyone just assumes the record label gets a ****ton no matter what.

Either way, I agree with Eversor. Music is something that I would have gone insane long ago without, but I just don't have the bank to support my favorite labels at the moment. Maybe when I get a job, get off my ***, and get some cashflow I'll start buying more CD's, but at the moment there's no good radio stations and all I've got is my own personal collection, so I'm going to do what I must to get the music I love.

Oh and saying you don't need music is stupid. Music isn't comparable to anything like food or water or movies. People have long lived without movies, with only the rich being able to afford plays and the like, but even the poorest of the poor have always had music in their lives. That, unfortunately, doesn't apply to today.

That's because back then poor people played their own music instead of stealing other people's. :p

The principle stands, though.

[QUOTE=Dj Yoshi]The principle stands, though.[/QUOTE]

No it doesn't! This is the give a man a fish/teach a man to fish concept in play here.

You forgot the :p icon!

Oh shut it, not everyone's technofied like you :p

And Temp--no one cares if you've helped people. They didn't make music that you stole. That doesn't really help your case (hypocrisy ftw)

[QUOTE=Dj Yoshi]Oh shut it, not everyone's technofied like you :p
[/QUOTE]

Hah, I win the debate!

Wolfy, I get my Marijuana for free. I also do not pay for my internet connection nor my computer, my parents do. So that's out of my hands. Consider them as my label.


On top of that, I HAVE helped people before, many times.

I went to mexico and brought them boxes of used and new clothing with the help of my girlfriend's mother who owns a clothing store. I could do more, and I fully intend to if and when I get enough money to freely spend.


EDIT: YOshi, the only reason I included that in my post was because Wolfy's post came off as if he was saying I've never done so.

Wow. Well...wow.

Sarcasm or not? Forgive me, but I cannot tell.

I wasn't bragging or anything, just stating the fact that I did actually try to help people aside from preaching that people should do so.