CENTURY MEDIA Sues More Than 7,000 People Over Illegal ICED EARTH, LACUNA COIL Downlo

[Genius Gone Insane]

http://www.blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=179532

If this is true, then Century Media won't be getting any more CD purchases from me. And I buy ALL my music. Fuck, I worked on the last CD I got and I still bought it. And I got a lot of music. Real fucken bad PR move guys.

 

[timislegend]

i haven't bought music in years.

one of the perks of working directly with labels... which is funny actually.


EMI gave me these records for free. i wonder why they don't stop label account managers from doing that?

 

[viralz]

Invading people's privacy for a few more bucks is just as bad as illegal downloading if you ask me.

Gotta love capitalism.

 

[JeffTD]

This label sucks. Heard too many horrible things from friends who are signed to them, just an awfully run place.

 

[Skaldir]

Where's the problem? Everybody knows its not allowed to download albums illegally. Bands and labels lose a lot of money and now they try to find ways to get it back.
If people would VALUE music and pay for albums labels wouldn't need to sue people downloading it. So imo its not the label that is to blame.

 

[exoslime]

Where's the problem? Everybody knows its not allowed to download albums illegally. Bands and labels lose a lot of money and now they try to find ways to get it back.
If people would VALUE music and pay for albums labels wouldn't need to sue people downloading it. So imo its not the label that is to blame.

i´m totally with this.. most people here on this forum are very against cracked software and this nothing different.
its a crime and its illegal to download music for free on P2p networks and other places, so if you still decide to do this, then you gotta live with the consequences if you got caught, period.

if you dont want to buy an album, than the chance that you still can listen to it free on streaming services or youtube are pretty good and you are not commiting a crime with this.

to me the problem lies in our culture and how things work in the present, than the action from the label who only try defend their rights.
Many people dont think its wrong to download illegally stuff from the net…i guess they have to learn it the hard way otherwise they will never understand and continue.

 

[updog]

a settlement of a few thousand dollars doesn't sound that unreasonable for sharing content though imo, depending on the amount shared of course.

much better than those cases where people are made examples of, and are made face a bill of several hundred thousand dollars or shit like that. now THAT is bullshit in every way.

it's better to give a lesson instead of throwing someone's life down the drain, especially in something so insignificant on an individual level as sharing intellectual property. in the future, when our actions online will be inevitably tracked with greater ease, i hope the punishments will level down to just making an individual have to purchase what he/she has downloaded/shared, with multipliers for repeat offenders.

the problem is large and expanding but as i said, on an individual level it's pretty much someone downloading one new album every once in a while. if let's say, i did that and were fined the album's price, or maybe 1.5x-2x the album price to say cut down costs on monitoring illegal activity, i'd learn from that and buy music from that point onwards because i would want the perks of downloading legally - best quality, album art included, correct tags and of course good conscience.

 

[exoslime]

the problem is large and expanding but as i said, on an individual level it's pretty much someone downloading one new album every once in a while. if let's say, i did that and were fined the album's price, or maybe 1.5x-2x the album price to say cut down costs on monitoring illegal activity, i'd learn from that and buy music from that point onwards because i would want the perks of downloading legally - best quality, album art included, correct tags and of course good conscience.

i aggree with you!!

from a personal experience i have, looking at workmates and some friends, those people who download doesnt download some music once in a while, they are downloading and sharing every shit they can find.. and at the end some of them doesnt even use or listen to the stuff they are downloading but they just to this to "have it" and collect it on their big hdds..

if you never or occasionally download and then download just one song or album once in a while you just had bad luck,.. its the same as you would never use the public transportation and then when your car is broke or at the service and you use publics , you havnt bought a ticket and get caught, its bad luck too, but if you use public transportation everday and never buy a ticket, perhaps its cheaper if you get caught once in a while instead of buying 2 tickets per day.

i dont buy lots of albums nowadays too, perhaps only 15-20 a year, but still each album i buy is worth it.. and i dont have the need to download music that its not worth to buy it.. if its good and i´m listening to it, i´m gonna buy it, if its not that good, then i dont need it and dont waste my time on it. in the last decades i have bout about 5-10 Albums a week..
if i just like to have one song and not the whole ablume, i go to the itunes store and buy i for a few cents..its not even expensive..

 

[plague_rider]

I'd have thought (although what they're doing is seeking money's lost through file sharing) they wouldn't have gone to these lengths after just releasing all of their stuff on Spotify...

Recent reports state apparently Spotify has posted a 40% increase in money paid out to labels and artists since last year...

Am I being too naive in thinking the music industry could be on the way back up?

 

[egan.]

It's hard for me to get upset when a company exercises it's legal right to sue to discourage people from exercising their illegal ability to take what they want when they want. In the age of spotify, official soundcloud pages and youtube most bands and labels are offering plenty of ways for people to hear stuff without torrenting.

 

[Firaxis]

It's hard for me to get upset when a company exercises it's legal right to sue to discourage people from exercising their illegal ability to take what they want when they want. In the age of spotify, official soundcloud pages and youtube most bands and labels are offering plenty of ways for people to hear stuff without torrenting.

Exactly.

 

[TravisW]

It's hard for me to get upset when a company exercises it's legal right to sue to discourage people from exercising their illegal ability to take what they want when they want. In the age of spotify, official soundcloud pages and youtube most bands and labels are offering plenty of ways for people to hear stuff without torrenting.

My thoughts exactly.

 

[TheWinterSnow]

I can understand fining them per album plus a percentage, but a few thousand dollar fine per album is ridiculous and the only reason they are doing that is to capitalize profits, not make up what they lost in albums sales. And I can almost guarantee that little to none of the revenue will go to any of the two artists.

With that in mind, with those albums on Spotify to listen to for FREE, why the fuck do people still download from torrent sites? To get back at the man (the record companies) or some stupid shit, or are these idiots living under a rock and not know about apps like Spotify or Pandora? Honestly they deserve whatever comes to them for being idiots.

 

[Skaldir]

With that in mind, with those albums on Spotify to listen to for FREE, why the fuck do people still download from torrent sites?

I think it is because it has become a fucking sport to upload and download albums as early as possible in the biggest possible mp3 quality.

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

Listening on Spotify or Pandora is inferior to many of us who enjoy using our cd player.

I don't care if these 7,000 people broke the law. Scapegoating them like this is chickenshit. What a mess the music industry is. Until someone can explain to me why downloading a bunch of 1s and 0s costs MORE than purchasing a CD, I'll have no sympathy for any record label. How about reducing the price of downloaded songs from $0.99 to $0.05? Scarred.

 

[egan.]

I can understand fining them per album plus a percentage, but a few thousand dollar fine per album is ridiculous and the only reason they are doing that is to capitalize profits, not make up what they lost in albums sales. And I can almost guarantee that little to none of the revenue will go to any of the two artists..

The EFF says it's all about settlement but it's impossible to know unless you had a candid conversation with the label heads. FWIW, it probably has to be a large per case settlement to pay for all of the lawyers. If CM went after 7000 people for $30 it wouldn't even cover the phone bill from the lawyers.

With that in mind, with those albums on Spotify to listen to for FREE, why the fuck do people still download from torrent sites? To get back at the man (the record companies) or some stupid shit, or are these idiots living under a rock and not know about apps like Spotify or Pandora? Honestly they deserve whatever comes to them for being idiots.

This is exactly why I think it could be completely an issue of deterrent. Or maybe they're just pissed. I can't really blame them either way.

 

[egan.]

Listening on Spotify or Pandora is inferior to many of us who enjoy using our cd player.

I don't care if these 7,000 people broke the law. Scapegoating them like this is chickenshit. What a mess the music industry is. Until someone can explain to me why downloading a bunch of 1s and 0s costs MORE than purchasing a CD, I'll have no sympathy for any record label. How about reducing the price of downloaded songs from $0.99 to $0.05? Scarred.

You always make this argument and it has never and will never make sense b/c it's based on your theory that the value of music is contingent on whether you can hold it in your hand.

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

^Nice spin there. You would be a good politician.

Since we are not politicians, let's be honest. Why are 1s and 0s the same price as physical cds? Meh, actually nevermind, I don't feel like derailing a thread I started. My juice is too low around here these days as it is.

 

[egan.]

They aren't. Prices for most online albums range from $5-10. CD's are still $10-15 new.

You also seem to fundamentally misunderstand how this market works right now. People want what they want when they want for free. That's why subscription models and ad based models can't replace piracy. That's why the CD is nearly dead as a medium.
Even when things are released for free they are ripped and re-distributed because the sense of entitlement has grown so absurd that listeners can't even be asked to listen on a particular website.
If things really were how you were describing then CD sales never would have dropped in the first place. You've constructed an argument based on all opinion and no fact.

Even if you believe you could lower prices enough to pull most of the pirates to legitimacy it wouldn't function. What was your number? $.05/song. So $.50 an album. Itunes takes it's cut so now you are making $.25 an album. So you have to sell 20K copies to pay for a $5k record assuming you didn't advertise it. And that ignores any traditional recoup model for bands which could mean the need to sell 150k copies to pay for a $5000 record.

 

[timislegend]

Why are 1s and 0s the same price as physical cds? Meh, actually nevermind, I don't feel like derailing a thread I started. My juice is too low around here these days as it is.

because people steal shit... so the (now) bankrupt labels are forced to hike prices for digital sales which ultimately makes the content more available... this revenue is still just thrown into a pit of unbelievable debt.

not to mention inflated salaries that are employed by an archaic business model that has pretty much, completely failed and is now operating solely on fumes.

it's like the film 127 hours... when your hand is stuck between a rock and a hard place, you shit and piss yourself until you inevitably just die or cut your own hand off with a dull leatherman knife and walk away.

i'm sure there is a metaphor in there somewhere.








*edit: spoiler alert for anyone who has not seen 127 hours.*