P2P Kazaa Law Suits

[JoseDominguez]

Well said QP
Just a point to everyone who "wouldn't have to download music if it was cheaper"

What marker do you use? did you steal that because it was overpriced in the UK? how about your paint?

Oh, and also........unless you have some medical condition I haven't heard of..........you don't actually "have to" get new music anyway........it's a luxury, not an essential.

Just payed £1200 for a widescreen TV..........how much would a 42" TV be in the states? if it's cheaper I'm sending mine back and stealing one from Dixons.

Oh and can someone post me a tanker of unleaded?

Downloading copywrite material is theft......pure and simple. If you do it, you are stealing....... simple. It's just hard to get caught.

Don't justify it with anything other than......"it's really easy".

Anyone produce copywrite material? how would you feel if I started ripping copies of it? then admitted that I do it here?
All your hard work.......stolen......it would suck.

But it would save me a couple of quid.

But surely.....you work for a big publisher, so you can afford it. It's not like I'm stealing something you created personaly, so that's OK.

 

[Robbo]

Jose, a philosopher or maybe even a moraliser might well elect to introduce the notion of 'degree' here.
Accepting of course we are all sinful, I don't think your moralising on such a pinnecky issue serves any other purpose than to highlight hypocrisy as just another human frailty.
This is not a dig but let's not get too virtuous here !

 

[JoseDominguez]

Not trying to moralise, I haven't even said I don't do it (not on any sort of high horse....I don't download, but that's beside the point).
Just saying that it's theft, being easy doesn't make it right.
It is a matter of degree........if your prepared to download and don't consider it theft......then think about why you pay when out shopping. Is it because it's right to pay? or is it because it's too easy to get caught if you don't?
Look at the kit getting stolen at tourneys.......someone couldn't afford the high prices of kit and was forced to steal it. Poor lamb.
I've just got a bit of respect for the people who make music/films etc... it's their job, just like mine's teaching. I'd be pi$$ed if someone skimmmed my wages.

 

[Robbo]

Originally posted by JoseDominguez
Not trying to moralise, I haven't even said I don't do it (not on any sort of high horse....I don't download, but that's beside the point).
Just saying that it's theft, being easy doesn't make it right.
It is a matter of degree........if your prepared to download and don't consider it theft......then think about why you pay when out shopping. Is it because it's right to pay? or is it because it's too easy to get caught if you don't?
Look at the kit getting stolen at tourneys.......someone couldn't afford the high prices of kit and was forced to steal it. Poor lamb.
I've just got a bit of respect for the people who make music/films etc... it's their job, just like mine's teaching. I'd be pi$$ed if someone skimmmed my wages.

Jose, I suppose the point I was trying to make is, there is theft and there is theft.
I have downloaded a fair bit of music in the past and I think I could honestly say that I might well think differently if CD prices over here had been more in line with US or mainland Europe costs.
The justification for their prices was both laughable and repugnant and on that basis it was relatively easy for me to hurdle any moral considerations I might have encountered.
As for personalising this dilemma in the form of teaching, I taught too, but if I was charging £100 per hour to teach mathematics, I wouldn't be too surprised if perhaps some of the students might sneak a peek at my notes if I left them lying around their front room

 

[manike]

Originally posted by JoseDominguez
Well said QP
Just a point to everyone who "wouldn't have to download music if it was cheaper"

What marker do you use? did you steal that because it was overpriced in the UK? how about your paint?

Oh, and also........unless you have some medical condition I haven't heard of..........you don't actually "have to" get new music anyway........it's a luxury, not an essential.

Just payed £1200 for a widescreen TV..........how much would a 42" TV be in the states? if it's cheaper I'm sending mine back and stealing one from Dixons.

Ah but in each of these other cases you have a choice and a cheaper option that will suffice. If you want to play paintball you can buy a £100 gun. If you want to watch telly you can buy a £50 TV. You aren't being forced by an over greedy industry to pay the most that you possibly can for something.

If you want to listen to music you like when you like you have to pay the exorbitant top level price. If there were options and a lower price for lower product in the music industry that would be fine by me. MP3's are lower quality than CD's. Why can't they make them available for cheaper? I would glady pay £20 for a CD but £5 for the album as MP3's. I would have the MP3's for my car and Ipod and the CD's for my home.

Originally posted by JoseDominguez
Oh and can someone post me a tanker of unleaded?

Oh don't get me started on fuel over here... It's one of the reaons this government makes me sick. During the fuel boycotts I was 100% behind the action. It's one of the reasons I am leaving this country to live in the states (and annoy Paul) as soon as I can

I am someone who owns IP and I've been ripped off. Now if we talk hypothetically, if I were trying to charge a fortune for the use of it I would be a little more understanding to being circumnavigated and screwed over, but if I make it freely available for a small royalty I would be more pissed off at being ripped off.

 

[JoseDominguez]

Same point again............who's forced to purchase music?
No one.
You don't have to have it, so you can choose to boycott if it's too expensive.

But no, you choose to steal it instead.

Why did we boycott fuel stations? rather than steal it?

It's easy to steal petrol........fill up and drive off.

No moral choice, no "doing the right thing" the only difference between the two is that copywrite theft is easy to get away with.

As for the price difference between us, europe and the states?

We play paintball for christs sake, we take it in the rear every time we buy something in the UK.

Is a car worth what you pay for it? no
Is any paintball kit worth the retail price? no

But you'd get caught if you nicked any of that stuff.

Just because it's too expensive for what it is, doesn't give you the right to steal it.
You have a choice........buy music, don't have it or steal it there are no other options. And remember, you don't actually have to have it at all.

There are things I want and can't afford.....they are too expensive and overpriced, I'll wait untill I have the money. My Archos is full of music, ripped from my cd collection, I only buy two or three cd's a month ( I shop around, never pay more than £12-£13), but I can't listen to everything I own now.
And bear in mind, HMV take CD's back......no questions asked, so you can't even justify it that way anymore. As do game for software.
How about ripping DVD's? there is a cheap legal option..... rent them, then wait until they drop in price if you "must own them".

And can anyone here really say that buying an album or two is going to break the bank? sorry, but you play a really expensive sport, it doesn't cut it. For any other luxury you have to make sacrifices.... I can't play if I go out this weekend etc..... so why is this different? I can't go out if I buy that album....I know, I'll steal it.

And the industry could cut it's prices......mebbe to £10 across the board...... fair? yes, but it wouldn't slow down the piracy.....it would just cut the profits of the company. Maybe a few people like Manike and Robbo would stop downloading (would you?) but the majority wouldn't. Most don't do it because of a greedy industry, tey do it because it's free.

 

[Sean]

Say Jose,

You ever recorded a programme off the radio or tv?

 

[Gadget]

I'm not going to dispute the legal position - downloading copyrighted material is theft.....according to current law.

However I think it's naive of record companies to think that they will be able to continue to make huge profits by sticking to their current business model.

They've been able to do so in the past because there was no alternative - unless you wanted to sit by the radio and wait, the only way to hear a particular track was to goto the shop and buy it.

Now there is an alternative, albeit illegal.

If (insert band name here) release a new album, I no longer have to purchase a CD containing 10 tracks for £15 only to find that they'll all awful.......I can preview them all for free on Kazaa, realise they're crap and avoid wasting my money.

Same thing with singles - I might hear a snatch of a track on Xfm and think 'ooh that sounds good', go and buy the CD and find that the funky intro is badly let down by the rest of the track.....not anymore.

Consumer choice is here with a bang and it's not going to vanish any time soon.

My use of P2P services has changed my CD buying habits - I DO buy less CDs now.....because I never buy music that I dislike. I always preview it as mp3s then buy the albums that I KNOW I like.

My buying habits with regard to music which I like haven't changed at all - I still buy the CDs, even if I've got the tracks on MP3 already........for exactly the same reason that I buy books rather than borrow them from the library.

Quality music will still get purchased by the people who like it, the dross will get listened to on mp3 then stuck in the recycle bin.

Yes we're reducing the record companies' profits and the income of poor artists, but they'll eventually 'get it' and (in the same vein as Itunes) offer a 'almost free' service which gives us the same benefits without the hassle and illegality of Kazaa/WinMX et al.

If in the meantime some record companies have to suffer reduced profits and talentless 'pop stars' have to start working at McD's, I'm not really bothered.

 

[Tom Tom]

As mentioned above I think that these tools that allow more than just music to be downloaded help you the consumer select the dross from the worth the cash.

Download a film like it pay £7 to go to the cinema, why pay that much to walk out half way through a crap film. I do rent films from the video shop but by then if I think thats good I wish I ahd seen it in the cinema you dont have the choice.

http://www.play.com

Play is great for cheaper CDs than any shop. They are really helpful and do refunds as well.

But my point for Kazaa is the one song you want off an album, or a deleted title (Mansun only had their singles on general release for 3 weeks) If you want rare stuff that may not be avaliable or if you know that the album has 3 songs on why pay £13 for 3 songs? (Thats £4.34 a song)

Its still theft but you are un able to buy it.

I am playing a devils advocate role because we are at the impass with : I download (for whatever reason) but I may have to pay the consiquence

and I dont download because its stealing. Full stop (period)

 

[Gadget]

Services like Apple's Itunes are the way the music industry should be heading.

If I had the choice between:

1. Buying a CD single for £3 containing the track I wanted + two others of unknown quality.

2. Downloading the track I wanted from Kazaa for free - but with questionable quality (how many mp3s have people got which have the odd encoding 'hiccup' or are at low bitrates) and variable download speed

3. Paying £1 to download the track I wanted from a high speed server knowing that it would be well encoded.

Option 3 would win every time.