Your opinion on piracy?

I thought i did, and havent disrespected anyone, i think...
But ill abstain to make any more comments as i made my point anyway !!
Apologize if anyone felt i went out of line at any given point !!
Thanks Nick !!

ok, to be specific:

I have worked as a recording engineer and live - sound technician. Also, I have attempted to live off my own music for a while.

The jab with the using equipment was not called for. That is true. I just know from my own experience that the price of high-quality (except analog) equipment has significantly dropped (which I believe is also one of the reasons it is so tough as a musician - there simply is more competition). Also, high quality equipment is lost on many amateurs, who think that better equipment == better quality recording, while in truth learning to use an equalizer would be the more important investment. But as I said, I don't know you and actually don't think that is the case with you. It was simply something about the formulation (it seemed that you where implying that if you had more money, your recordings would sound better) which tripped me into writing that.

I think the problem is a vocabulary one. To me, all the costs you state are production costs. I was speaking of release costs. I personally never dealt with record labels or stores etc. and because of that never had any release costs.

I also did not mean to invade your privacy, I was simply curious what those release costs are that you where continuously referring to.

Piracy - What I think we see happening is in many ways similar to the Gutenburg Press. Prior to that creation books were hand written and very scarce. Within a few years, how many scribes were still in business? And how many books were available as compared to before the printing press? Then look what happened when the ofset web press came into existence - even more printed material. Prior to the printing press there was little concern about piracy of books because you had to be able to afford a scribe to copy the book, and anyone who could afford a scribe had no problem getting the book he wanted. And books were very expensive. And often had some amazing artwork in them. You got something for your money...

Today we have gone from Live Performance - to wire recorders, to tape recorders and vinyl rocords to cassettes, to DVD and now digital. Each method is very disruptive to the status quo and harder to control than the previous method.

The biggest group that is trying to control the situation now is the "RECORD COMPANIES AND THEIR EXECUTIVES AND LAWYERS" who are rather good at soaking up a very large amount of what various artists have created and keeping it for themselves. Some groups have gone the Self Release route to enable themselves to control the distribution and profits from their creative works. This scares the recording company people because they are seeing the golden goose taken out of their control.Imagine - teh performers and the audience making the descision without some middleman charging them for control of the product.

Part of the problem with the piracy problem is that time have changed and the medium has changed and now the distribution system has to change. And the distibution system is trying to force everything back into the box that ist has used for over 40 years, and it is now outmoded...

Fkeel- We cool...I think i now see what you were trying to imply and makes sense in a way. I only invested in it as otherwise would be spending money on studios that i can instead charge for ! Living off music is quite an ungrateful thing as you always struggling to make ends meet !
And ill agree with you in that having the gear alone is not enough... I hear many people nowadays claiming they are producers when they dont even know the basics of what a compressor entails...
But trust me- There are a lot of costs involved, unfortunately. And where i wanted to get is: If this system that tries to get every penny out of us through our own effort and work stops asking me to pay, ill be a happy man in giving music away at price of cost. Im the first one to shout out for open source, and similar things... But until the moment comes that something is done, we will have to keep the powers that be in place. Instead fight for the things we think fair !! At the end of the day, this capitalist society is at the end of its life... People are at the end of its tether as most people cant afford to pay for so many futile things; Mind you most things we pay are illegal anyway...They just want to make us think it is...and we tend to no question !! But that is for another subject anyway
I do see your point and you do have a point in several things... But we cannot just kick people out of their farms and businesses and say this all belongs to the people , like many revolutions did in the past. That would be a kinda chaotic !!
Maybe we should also include patents in it as well, these big corporations are getting to rich and influencing the world in a bad way just to favour profit !!
Like the big drug pharmaceutical companies, that manage to always get ways of poisoning more and more, without regard to anyone. Look at the case of vaccines and whats coming out now about their cock ups in the past !!

Thanks for your input anyway Fkeel. As i said im not against you in anyway, i actually agree with you a lot of ways... But we cant just throw things to the wind, otherwise we will end up worse than we are now !!

Wow! This is a great discussion (even if it was started by a spammer). My view of it is: it is what it is. The battles will be fought with the big guys (MS, Disney, Sony, et al) throwing tons of resources at the "problem" but the people will always find a way around it. In the meantime a whole new infrastructure will grow and eventually displace the old model.
I think we are seeing the outlines of what this may look like. If you look at the history of the technology that is enabling this change a good part of it goes back to the counterculture movement of the late sixties (google "The Well"). Stewart Brand and others foreshadowed the internet as a tool to share and connect knowledge with the physical world envisioning a wholistic, connected world embodying this idea in the Whole Earth Catalog. These, to my mind were the real pioneers and visionaries. We are now the heirs to this legacy. It is all just evolution.
The Grateful Dead were probably the first band to take up the challenge of this new way of thinking. From the beginning they were famous for free concerts and "squandering" large sums of money on experimental records that would never be profitable. They quixotically started their own record company and gave away vinyl discs (remember those?) to their fans. Then they allowed recording and free distribution of their live shows. They were dismissed as goofy hippies by many but the result was that for several years in the '80s they were the highest grossing band in the world, surpassing even Michael Jackson in concert revenues. The point here is they were being paid for being working musicians, not "recording artists" and they profited from relinquishing control of the product. No one could have predicted that outcome. Evolution again.
Considering Simon's dilemna with his book being copied to the internet, perhaps other revenue streams exist such as personal appearances, grants from educational institutes, etc. (I don't know anything about him beyond his book, so this is all speculation). In that case, the widespread piracy of the book may be more than offset by the other revenue and hopefully the initial cost of producing the book is paid by the copies that were purchased. The content producers will have to be clever but in the end they may be able to wrest control from the middlemen.
I really don't see all this being resolved very soon. Copyright law began originally as an effort by the church and governments of the day to control the dissemination of information. It failed at that and became a means of controlling revenue evolving into the present system which again is failing. Information does want to be free. But the stakes are so high now that the struggle to maintain that control will not be pretty. I wouldn't be surprised to see literal wars being fought over this, although it's more likely they will be cyberwars. Now that I think about it , maybe they've already begun.

Nuff said Yankee !! Wise words there !!

I think one thing you can say about the situation (for music and most other things) is that there will always be musicians and there will always be people who want to listen to music(people will always need programmers). As long as there are humans this will be the case(1984 type mind control paranoia not withstanding).The music industry and the 'middle men' are a transient facet of evolution. To put it simply the thing will work it's own way out just as water finds it's way downhill.

As a artist and musician i like the idea of people paying for music/art but i am also a pragmatic about the situation.

I don't contain enough brain cells that can do music but just thinking outside the box for a bit, if more people are empowered by cheaper electronics to pursue some music production or performance, then would more people, their friends and family etc. come to realize how hard it is for artists to make money and pirate a little less?

Liudr - I like your perspective, and it will to many as it did already with the proliferation of cheaper access to nice musical tools and DAW's, etc ...
Problem is that we live in a society that teach us that we should go out for all we can get ! Therefore Piracy becomes natural !
Charity, compassion, identify with the next bredrin... Thats a thing of the past !! Thats not what they want you to do !!
So piracy sounds like a "SAVING, SOMETHING FOR FREE".
Its almost like a religious person stopping running away from a bull in a field and kneel down to start praying for help... It just doesnt work !!
But that goes to shows you must have a good heart, au contraire of majority !

iyahdub,

Until social welfare can support everyone to pursue their own dreams (not pots or drugs) without have to work for a living but work as a means of necessity and there is no need to make money since there won't be money, we're always gravitating towards money, making or saving, legally or not. I like the concept of sharing (pirating aside). It's a human spirit. If money is no longer an issue for the hardworking artists, I'm pretty sure this human spirit will explode :slight_smile: This should invite someone with rocket science experience to invent warp drive and attract the vulcans to help us out! Let's lighten up a bit and hope for a (note, very slightly and might be buried by bit noise) better future :wink:

Boom...Nuff said !! Im with you there !! This society could make it so easy to all, but its easier to have a few rule the majority !! Dont think; Dont question; Dont open your mouth...
I read somewhere that society that we live in tends to filter the thoughtful and replace them with the faithful; Because when everyone is thinking the same, noone is thinking at all !!

Thanks for you words, as they do make all the sense !!

Problem is - if all "artists" were supported by the public there would be no need for them to produce anything of quality. The Greatful Dead made money, not because they gave stuff away, but because they produced a product that people were willing to part with money for. As has been seen in the USA, government grants for the arts tend to produce a lot of CRAP that no-one wants. Art for Arts sake is a wonderful concept, but why do I have to pay for it? If the "artists" have the right to be supported, why don't I have that same right? Eventually, what with everyone being supported, there is no-one left doing the supporting... But in these times we surely have never seen an example of that...

The other problem is this - We have so many sources of "art" that supply now exceeds demand. Which means that the cost of this "art" should decline, but those who distribute it are trying to hold the prices high by artificial means. There are so many choices, and only a limited amount to cash in buyers pockets, so there is a shortage of earnings for many "artists".

The old saying " Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" has been ignored by many "artists". They want to produce their sort of crap and are offended because they aren't getting rich off it because no-one likes it. They want to be supported because they are "artists" and not because the produce something that consumers like. In many cases the monkeys at the local zoo could produce more appealing art by slinging poo...

Throughout history artists tended to be starving. Many of them had personality problems that made it difficult for them to relate to others, and a number were considered failures during their lifetimes. Are modern artists so much better that they should live well off their "art" while many of the great artists starved? And an analysis of many great paintings can reveal much of the mental state of the artist. Think "The Scream" or some of Van Gogh...

We wasnt advocating being supported by all means, i actually meant this society could divide the profit for the welfare of all, and it doesnt...The goals a always targets, growth...There is only so much growth the market will cope with !!
But about the personality problems- Most of our geniuses have had some sort of syndrome of the autistic spectrum !! Thats not secret nowadays. As a dad of a child with Asperger syndrome i see no problem with their perspective !! Actually, in society of deranged people, it is the sane ones that feel sick !! Just like when harmony meets chaos, harmony will invariably be perceived as chaos !!
I agree with the point of a lot of crap art being funded!! But hey - ITS ART !¬!

Piracy - What I think we see happening is in many ways similar to the Gutenburg Press

true - I totally agree... Some ppl might not like the fact that things are going to change but it's their problem

I can understand the guy who started this thread - just look at disproportion of incomes (average annual income for india = $ 1219$ USA = ~40000$ ) ->> they earn roughly 32 times less

100$ is not a big deal, right? lol now imagine paying 3200$ for exactly the same programme

PS. I am happy to announce that it isn't illegal to download music and movies where I live - yup heard me right it isn't illegal at all

I'm going to guess that it isn't illegal for me to download music or movies.
It would be illegal to then watch, or allow others to watch them, though.

I am farily certain no one cares whether you really saw the movie or not after downloading it. So you're probably wrong

Here it is 100% legal to download and watch movies and listen to music as long as its for personal use
...though this doesn't mean I can download computer programmes as well

Here it is 100% legal to download and watch movies and listen to music

As it is in most jurisdictions, as long as you make adequate recompense to the owner of the work.
Apple have been running such a service for years.

As it is in most jurisdictions, as long as you make adequate recompense to the owner of the work.
Apple have been running such a service for years.

Nope, 100% free of charge

lol wrong link again... sharing files isn't allowed... just downloading and for personal use

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Polish_Copyright_Law

Article 23.

  1. It shall be permitted to use free of charge the work, which has been already disseminated for purposes of private use without the permission of the author. This provision does not authorize to build constructions according to other authors' works in the field of architecture and architecture and town planning, and to use the electronic databases constituting works unless this refers to one's own use for scientific purposes, which is not related to any profit-gaining activity.
  2. The scope of the private use shall cover the use of single copies of the work by a group of persons staying in a personal interrelation with each other, including in particular blood relation, kinship or a social relationship.

So is piracy stealing ? well.. it is for you but not for me 8)

Laws are just... laws - set of rules written down by some people who are often lobbied by some pressure groups.

No offence but I think some of your laws are ridiculous and outdated - which essentially makes people lose respect for the law in general... like copyright laws or age of consent set at 18 - 'YAY! let's jail 92% of total population'
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When I refer to "piracy" in this post, I mean not-for-profit piracy (people downloading/uploading copyrighted works). For-profit piracy is something entirely different, and there are very clear laws against it in pretty much every first-world nation.

I don't condone piracy, but I believe the response from rights holders is often worse. We have people getting raided by SWAT teams because their users may have uploaded a song. Nations around the world are passing laws that essentially give the music and movie industry the ability to shut down anyone they want, without cause. Those same organizations are refusing to allow low-cost digital distribution methods in piracy havens like India and China, because they are afraid the content will be pirated (great logic there...). They have created a situation where the average person knows they are doing wrong, but they are hurting an evil corporation (that shoots dogs and arrests grandmothers).

Piracy is a response to a new medium. Rights holders still think they are living in a time where they have total control over distribution, in a world where their product is infinitely copy-able, at no cost. We need a new business model, and crappy DRM is not the answer (no DRM survives contact with the user?). The best example of this that I have seen is Steam. Its a nice, non-invasive DRM system for video games that offers many useful features.

Basically, the solution isn't to try to arrest every pirate. Instead, try to give people a reason to purchase your software. Piracy can never be stopped.

Also, to those of you that are very anti-piracy: Ever used a VCR?

Also, to those of you that are very anti-piracy: Ever used a VCR?

Yes, I did. Your point is?