Who downloads/who does'nt

[PhlegethonVeins]

You're really taking this shit way seriously.

This is one of the biggest things facing the music industry, and has been for around a decade now. It affects countless jobs, musical fidelity, musicians, engineers, producers, advertisers, retailers, morales, laws etc etc etc. If anything it's something not taken seriously enough simply because people have grown so accustomed to being able to get away with it without direct personal consequence and are too lazy to approach it in a manner that doesn't detriment so many others.

 

[JontRevolting]

Besides the fact that it's illegal and morally wrong,I just can't see why people would settle for souless mp3s when you can have the real thing.It's not only robbing the band but you're also robbing yourself.However,I understand that people have certain circumstances that prevent them from purchasing,myself included atm but for me downloading just does'nt cut the mustard.I just add them to my wishlist for the when I will have the money to buy them.

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

I illegally download all Drudkh, racist/fascist fucks hahahahaha

 

[Krow]

This is one of the biggest things facing the music industry, and has been for around a decade now.

This being said, if I didnt download in the beginning, I wouldnt know 5% of the bands I love today.

 

[Cythraul]

I illegally download all Drudkh, racist/fascist fucks hahahahaha

hahahahahahahahahahahahaha

 

[skeptik]

I buy racist/fascist music in the hopes that they'll write something in the booklet like Temnozor about how the proceeds of the album sales go directly to the destruction of the lesser races or something. Yet another intangible in the favor of purchasing vs downloading.

But seriously, on the topic of 'supporting' people whose views you vehemently disagree with, such as NS bands for many people, I really have no problem with this personally. Are these people not allowed to acquire money? Are they supposed to just die? Should they not be allowed to have a job? If they have a job, then their employer is supporting their views indirectly, and I would argue that the purchasing of the album is also merely indirect support (unless you support the message behind the music as well).

Also, people who keep saying "I wouldn't have heard of x% of the bands I love today if it weren't for illegal downloading" are full of shit. You most likely heard of the band before you decided to download it. And you of course chose to sample it illegally rather than doing so through legal means such as myspace or last.fm.

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

Close thread.

 

[crimsonfloyd]

Well, there's also the fact that illegal downloading is, obviously, illegal, but more importantly, also theft. Obviously something being illegal does not make something wrong, which is why I choose to emphasize the fact that it is theft, which is more or less universally looked down upon (as long as one isn't doing it themselves, of course, then it's okay). While illegal downloading is not removing property from one person and giving it to another, it is still acquiring digital property to which there is no entitlement.

Of course, whenever I mention this, I typically receive "well, it's not that big of a deal" or "I don't care" as a response, which is why I didn't raise the issue earlier. People forget that while the music itself is a work of art, the tangible object is in fact a commercial product, to which there is no natural entitlement.

It's true that it is illegal, but it's very poorly enforced. I guess when it comes down to it I just don't care about stealing music if it has no consequence for the musicians whether I do or not. If I'm buying used they get no money. If I download they get no money. I support my local record store through my fixed CD budget.

I'll support bands by going to concerts and buying their merch. If they never come to California, so it goes...

 

[PhlegethonVeins]

It's true that it is illegal, but it's very poorly enforced. I guess when it comes down to it I just don't care about stealing music if it has no consequence for the musicians whether I do or not. If I'm buying used they get no money. If I download they get no money. I support my local record store through my fixed CD budget.

I'll support bands by going to concerts and buying their merch. If they never come to California, so it goes...

IT DOES have consequence for the musicians, financialy, contractually, for booking gigs, etc etc. Your singular theft doesn't add up to anything, no. But millions embrace these ideals and bring a great deal of consequence to the artist. Even used cd stores, while bring no money back to the origins support an the industry over all, and a healthier industry means a healthier environment for the artists.

 

[sevag00]

The thing is you cannot stop people from downloading. Even if it is morally wrong or they are robbing the band indirectly.

 

[Seditious]

Which is a form of theft just with copyrighted materials.

theft
Parts of Speech:*noun
Definition:*stealing
Synonyms:*annexation, appropriation, break-in, burglary, caper, cheating, crime, defrauding, deprivation, embezzlement, extortion, filch, fleece, fraud, grab*, heist, holdup, hustle*, job*, larceny, lift*, looting, mugging, peculation, pilferage, pilfering, pillage, pinch*, piracy, plunder, purloining, racket, rapacity, rip-off, robbery, robbing, score*, shoplifting, snatch*, snitch, steal, stickup, swindle, swindling, swiping, thievery, thieving, touch*, vandalism

oh, good, casuistry.
which legislation or legal textbook that gives 20+ synonyms for piracy are you justifiably quoting from?

 

[Seditious]

It's not that I'm against downloading. I just feel that people should be fair about these sorts of things. If someone downloads an album and likes it, or certainly enough to keep the mp3s, then why not buy the album?

sure, that sounds fair, but we have to think seriously about the proposition.--if we take it seriously that that's how we're going to behave, then we immediately need to frame things differently, abandoning the old attitude, the old 'shit, how much hard drive space do I have left?' question of the limits you put on your music collection, in favor of the new dominant concern: 'do I _really_ like this _that_ much?--do I like it enough to pay for it, or would I only keep it because it's convenient to do so, and because maybe 3 years from now when I'm in the mood for that sort of song I'll be glad I hung on to it? should I delete it, or buy it even though I already have thousands of perfectly good songs?'. If you can just keep everything you hear, you don't have to think too seriously about it, but if you're forced ethically or legally to delete things, you have to ask 'is it really _that_ good? even if it's that good, do I have nothing more important, nothing more unique and enriching to spend my money on?'...once you've got 400 songs, maybe it would be money better spent to buy some beer instead of another 10 songs. I would suspect that a lot of songs wouldn't make the cut. but, worse, I think a lot of songs would never even be heard.

It seems like in older times, people got a lot more wear out of their albums, and that if we went back to something like a lifestyle where there were no recordings and we had to pay to see performers, hearing songs we like only 10-20 times in our entire life, or where we only had 20 or 30 albums instead of 200 or 2,000, that we would just adapt and become content with the way things are, rather than actively pursue more and more music and spend more and more money. I'm not sure which artists feel that would benefit them.

When people download and have hundreds of GBs of music on their computer but don't own any CDs or plan on buying any in the future, this creates a problem for a lot of people.

as a poor person (and one who would, having no money, have chosen to hear _no_ 2010 releases last year, instead of the 200 I did hear--I wouldn't window-shop anything I couldn't afford), the only impact I have on a band financially is whatever slim benefit word-of-mouth results in--I don't contribute to them, unless that ultimately does, but I also don't do anything to detract from their well-being. Perhaps in a few years I'll spend money on them, in gratitude for songs that weren't just downloaded and forgotten, and it will do them more good, but to choose to never hear their music in this time I have available doesn't have any potential to help them.

...this creates a problem for a lot of people. Not just for bands, labels and the like but for people who enjoy buying music in physical format. If in the future all we are left with is digital downloads (at most), then that would be pretty sad.

it's a problem for me that the only way I can get the CDs I want is by insanely expensive imports...but I can hardly say 'damn you, people of my city, why can't you have good taste, and spend good money, in order that the music I like be available cheaply down the road from me!! stop making it so hard for me to get hardcopies of obscure Black Metal albums'

 

[Seditious]

Besides the fact that it's illegal and morally wrong,I just can't see why people would settle for souless mp3s when you can have the real thing.

the real what?
the music existed before it possessed that soulless disc, what does that circular matter matter? send the soul to iValhalla and forget the body you found it in.
if all your life albums had been available only on pen-drive instead of optical storage, you'd be calling mp3/FLAC/whatever 'real'.

 

[Seditious]

Also, people who keep saying "I wouldn't have heard of x% of the bands I love today if it weren't for illegal downloading" are full of shit. You most likely heard of the band before you decided to download it.

that's untrue for the first album I hear from the overwhelming majority of the bands I've heard, all I have is a name, or a name and genre classification, or a name and someone's recommendation. ...however, it's important to note that there are scores of instances of my liking a band I had never heard of, whose entire back catalog I then download. just as it's important to note I'd never have bothered to listen to even the first one if I knew I'd only be creating frustration for myself by creating a desire for things I can't have.

you of course chose to sample it illegally rather than doing so through legal means such as myspace or last.fm.

not everyone has broadband, or only ever listens to music at their PC where they're able to browse and stream.
sure, I can stream a podcast, but I prefer to download it and have reliable access to it whenever the whim to play it strikes me. same with music. hell, it would be quite a nightmare, actually, to try to decide on something I want to hear, then hunt for it, then acquire it, then finally play it, and if it's no good, repeat the process again and again all at the very moment I have a minute to check something out. ...it would be like a book at the library that can't be loaned out. what harm is it to the author if I take a copy and don't touch it for the first week or so? or if I download it and forget for a whole year?

 

[Seditious]

IT DOES have consequence for the musicians, financialy, contractually, for booking gigs, etc etc. Your singular theft doesn't add up to anything, no. But millions embrace these ideals and bring a great deal of consequence to the artist.

if it doesn't add up to anything, stop abusing the term 'theft'.

suppose you put up security cameras at the houses of the band members, and at the stores their CDs are in, and you put up firewalls on iTunes and the band website, you keep an eye on everything, ...will you be able to detect digital duplication? can you point to some change in the welfare of the band and say 'here we can see at 00:35GMT someone deprived the band of x amount of money. at 00.34 the band was better off than at 00.36, because of the crime someone out there just committed'?

where is there a financial deprivation, a loss, a consequence like that which can be documented with true 'theft'?

if there isn't one, then just stick to honest arguments, stop acting like it's about a theft, and comment on the societal trend you dislike, speak like a priest or a politician rather than a policeman. yea, there are consequences...paparazzi are a consequence to think of if you want to be famous, and if we can't outlaw the market and the freedoms it survives on, all we can do is say 'well, you're aware it's a problem, and if you choose to seek fame, then you're choosing to accept that sort of problem might be a problem for you'. If someone wants to become a professional musician, they know what the stakes are, and they can decide for themselves if it's worth doing or not. They don't need to ask for the culture to be changed. they're free to not become musicians if they feel like it wouldn't be rewarding enough. social changes always have consequences, but what are these consequences? it seems to be the people behind the artists who rake in millions who complain about the exposure piracy has offered, so maybe as a consequence good musicians would get more recognition and money, and shitty well backed artists would make less, and maybe less people who seek to be pop musicians because it's no longer a good way to make a fortune... presumably you were thinking of consequences far more terrifying than these, but you haven't said.

hell, what do you say of a model who makes money from having her picture taken -- what if I see her in public and duplicate her image via my camera, thereby not needing to buy a magazine, which, if this became a trend, would have consequences for her ability to book photo-shoots. am I a thief? did I steal future income from her? she had some absurd expectation of being given money for her image being duplicated and saved for my private use, and her expectation was thwarted by my access to technology. Should we tell her 'get used to it', or should laws be passed to make what I did illegal so that the law will stand up for her against such horrible robberies, such wicked thievery?

 

[Seditious]

The thing is you cannot stop people from downloading. Even if it is morally wrong or they are robbing the band indirectly.

same is true of rape, but of what value is such an observation?

 

[SkeletonWitch]

I download a lot of music.

In Lebanon, we cannot buy metal music, especially death/black metal music, or anything remotely blasphemous.

I have a metal collection of about 40 CD's (Bloodbath, Candlemass, Edge of Sanity, Hypocrisy, Nokturnal Mortum, etc.) but i went through a great deal of trouble to "smuggle" them.

Had it not been for downloading, I would have never discovered 99% of the bands I listen to nowadays.

Self-righteous pricks claim not to download tend to miss a great deal of excellent obscure/underground musical acts, then again, I believe that 90%+ of those self righteous pricks are closet downloaders.

 

[The Butt]

As I said before, I do have a decent-sized (and growing) collection of CDs but that's not gonna stop me from downloading.

 

[Satanstoenail]

hell, what do you say of a model who makes money from having her picture taken -- what if I see her in public and duplicate her image via my camera, thereby not needing to buy a magazine, which, if this became a trend, would have consequences for her ability to book photo-shoots. am I a thief? did I steal future income from her? she had some absurd expectation of being given money for her image being duplicated and saved for my private use, and her expectation was thwarted by my access to technology. Should we tell her 'get used to it', or should laws be passed to make what I did illegal so that the law will stand up for her against such horrible robberies, such wicked thievery?

Models are paid to sell other people's products. People aren't buying the magazine to look at the model, they're buying the magazine to look at the products on the model. Unless you're talking about bikini models or pornstars in which case your point & shoot snapshot is hardly comparable to a proper photo spread. Basically your analogy sucks shit.

 

[Onder]

Models are paid to sell other people's products. People aren't buying the magazine to look at the model, they're buying the magazine to look at the products on the model. Unless you're talking about bikini models or pornstars in which case your point & shoot snapshot is hardly comparable to a proper photo spread. Basically your analogy sucks shit.

Yeah that analogy may have flaws but the difference between robbery/theft and downloading still remains. If you went to a shop and stole the CD, that would be a theft. This is just copying the insides of the product that is being sold.