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Originally Posted by djtoast  Bullshit.
Bands sign contracts with labels; no-one puts a gun to their head and forces them to; it may seem that once they're successful that they "deserve" a bigger slice of the rewards, but hell, they shoulda negotiated a better deal then. Whining about it after the fact gets very little sympathy from me. |
It's not about a "bigger" slice. It's about any slice. There are some bands who will only see a tiny amount of cash off the back of some very good sales. Further, the record companies don't always do what they say they will, and can also enforce certain "exceptional" exclusions and penalties at the drop of a hat.
It's also kind of hard to negotiate better deals with companies that operate price fixing cartels. This isn't like buying a used car.
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Originally Posted by djtoast Um... this is just nonsense. |
Care to explain why, or is it simply because you say so?
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Originally Posted by djtoast Maybe so. My local corner shop charges an outrageous price for milk; doesn't mean i can just take it without paying. You think (certain) music costs too much? Do without, same as any other commercially available product. |
With regard to your analogy, it doesn't work. You have choice in that market. With CD/music sales you don't. THEY OPERATE PRICE FIXING CARTELS! THIS MEANS THAT YOU DON"T HAVE CHOICE! (Or at least didn't)
Futher, in fact people *have* came up with an alternative to being ripped off. Downloading!
You are thinking the way the record companies want you to think - that there is only the "traditional" way of buying music - ie the old fashioned cartel way, the "my way or the highway". That mode of thought and indeed system of arguing a point is a red herring.
In some other countries (Japan for example and, I think, Canada), a tax is levied on all media players. Downloading via p2p isn't illegal, you can download as much as you wish, and the tax is divvied between mechanical copyright collection agencies for distribution to the rights holders.
This is a scenario that the record companies have fought tooth and nail against in the countries where they hold political infuence. The UK and US in particular. Why? Because they are utterly backward looking and it takes the means to control prices out of their hands.
Put simply, if the record companies don't like the revenues they are pulling in they are at liberty to give it up and start a new venture. Human trafficking maybe, prostitution rings, you know, things they know and are good at - namely exploitation.
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Originally Posted by djtoast iTunes tracks can be put on five devices legally. |
Wow....A whole 5! Thanks very much Apple! what if I have 6 devices? You are still thinking "old" style. You are thinking the way the record companies want you to think.
Is it wrong to rip a CD to your hard disk? By your reckoning it must be, as in this country we have no rights to make back ups of our media. It's morally OK if I fly to the US though, or France. Just when I bring the tracks across the border it's theft...yes?
And please, iTunes is held up as the shining light of DRM'd music! With some services you get to copy it to one device. What about also the Microsoft "Plays For Sure" DRM schema, where in fact now the music you have bought is unable to be played on *anything* since their new music initiative came into being and they withdrew the licence. Or indeed the Virigin music service that announced your legally bought tracks would time out? Is that just? Is that right? It's legal. Or the services like Napster where the tunes you buy run our when you cease your monthly subscription?
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Originally Posted by djtoast How is it being ripped off if you choose to buy something? |
If you ever looked at a record contract you would see that it's not that simple. They are very, very complex documents. A lawyer is needed to decipher most of it and even then it's extremely complex. Bands are at the mercy of poor advice and sometimes simply very dubious contract stipulations.
For example - a band I know who have had heavy rotation on MTV and yet years in were still "losing" money looked into, at great expense, why they were still in debt to the record label and living hand to mouth - When they signed the contract there were two differing royalty amounts, one for "standard" priced CD's and another for "discount" rate CD's. This bands full priced releases were being classified as discount rate and thus only qualifying for a far smaller royalty payment. Why? The record label set a much higher than normal "standard" rate for a certain number of bands, and they would then "discount" this rate for sales to distro's. This meant, despite the CD's costing full RRP price they qualified for discount rates. The band remained impoverished.
They announced the intention to challenge this legally, they have a pretty much water tight case, the problem is that their access to money to fund the case is significanty less than the record company's and basically by a process of delaying and legal clarification they managed to hold off until the band ran out of money to prosecute the case. No money? No case. The are owed a *lot* of money. Money they will never see.
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Originally Posted by djtoast That may be true in part; certainly a helluva lot of downloads happen that wouldn't have been sales. Some certainly would, pretty hard to quantify accurately I expect. |
And would they have been sales if there was no downloading? I doubt it. People now like to "graze" in music. Test the water. I think thats an opportunity, rather than a restriction. And record company figures do nothing to make me doubt that. They don't have the first clue exactly how downloads are affecting music sales.
Sales in the 70's fell precipitously. For, I think, much the same reasons as they are falling now. The range of music being released has fallen significantly. The volume of "clone" music has grown exponentially, just as it did with disco music in the 70's.
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Originally Posted by djtoast Now this I agree with. films, TV shows, music... even books and magazines could and should be easily available legally where I live, when I want. If that were true I'd probably never steal stuff. As it is I illegally download Lost, Prison Break, BSG... I often download music before I can buy it in a shop... But I also recognise that someone else owns the rights to it and trying to justify stealing it cos at the end of the day I'm too cheap to pay what the person who owns it wants to sell it for wouldn't enter my head. It's convenience rather than price that tends to make me steal stuff - I'm at work when a TV show is on, etc etc. Not that this is any better an excuse, but I'm kidding myself less. |
I'm sorry, you are wrong in assuming that what you are doing is morally questionable or is theft. Like I say, there are a number of methods that the "rights holders" could get payment for your actions, and in some countries they do. The problem is that they don't want payment. They want the genie back in the bottle and the bad internet to go away. That way they can go back to price fixing, regionalisation and control.
I'm not a big downloader. But that's because I'm discerning. I hate television. I "test" music out. Like I say, if I like it I buy it. If I won't listen to it I delete it and forget about it. I'm not going to regard myself as a thief for not paying for something I don't like.
Much of the current industrial scene is dodgy and image driven - straight teeth in your mouth are more important than the words coming out of it. Ooh! makeup!
When a system is epressly set up to disavantage you unfairly, it's not wrong to redress that balance.
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Originally Posted by djtoast The record companies are doing themselves a great deal of harm by charging more than the market value of music, and yes that's a contributing factor in people turning to "piracy" (I hate that word) but nothing you've said makes it okay. |
In this country you don't have rights, but in France you do. It's okay to do it in France but not in this country? Is that what you are saying? I travel to the US a fair bit, is it "okay" to rip my CD's when on US soil? What about when i bring those tracks back here? The main thrust of your argument is that it's illegal in this country therefore it's wrong. Or are you referring to social acceptability? If so, you've already lost in the court of public opinion.
A download is *only* a lost sale in the eyes of the record company. They have no, repeat, no empirical evidence to back this stance up. Statistically, a drop in CD sales is irrelevant as they have no alternative figures to see what would happen in the absence of the internet.
They (the record companies and RIAA etc) are philistines. They are frauds and money junkies. Nothing more. They have systematically tried to destroy music and enslave musicians and artists. And then cry bitter tears when something affects their monopoly and threatens to empower artists?
This is a control issue and a money issue. Nothing more.
Sorry, one other thing djtoast,
The artist whose lyrics you quote?
He disagrees with you.
Further, the image with the lyrics you use is, technically, a breach of copyright. How do you sleep at night?
Haven't you seen the record company's attempts to shut down lyric sites under the DMCA (digital millenium copyright act)? Ironically, TVT were one of the labels seeking this injunction.
