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AndrewB

Piracy is for the greater good of music.

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(Opinion ahead)

A lot of moral fundamentalists who want to make sure that they stay in the moral "safe zone" without thinking too much about it, automatically assume that music piracy is a form of stealing, and hurts music in the end. But it couldn't be farther from the truth.

Today's music industry is a desperate and obsolete dictatorship, or empire, with ties to organized crime. Their very product, their very reason to be, has been rendered obsolete by the wonders of the internet. They are now frantically pushing for legislation that forces the public to buy something they don't want or need. When the cobblestone industry collapsed, to be replaced with gravel and asphault, it put a lot of people out of work, but no successful attempts were made at banning the new, more efficient forms of road foundation.

In today's world, the record industry is the cobblestone, and the online trading community is the asphault. The really big thing is that we have never seen such a huge money empire, doomed to collapse through no longer having a wanted product. It's really quite unprecedented. The music industry is going to go through a HUGE change in the next 20 years. Here's what will likely happen:

- Record sales, music videos, publicity campaigns, and industry-forced-popularity figures (think Britney and N'Sync) will collapse to likely less than 2% of their current state of existence. Industry-chosen figures will no longer be able to simply grab popularity through forced repetition and exposure to the public. This means NO MORE POP-CULTURE ____.

- Music will no longer be sold. It will be completely free, available over the internet. This will be the new form of "publishing." Artists won't be able to make music for the intention of turning a profit. They will have to love what they do, and be happy with spreading their music for free. Only live performances will turn a profit.

- The record labels will die in a way not unlike the Wicked Witch of the West. "I'm mellllltiiiiiiiing....!" It will be extremely amusing.


All thanks to the magic of the internet. But could this be averted? There are two possible ways for the previously-mentioned events to not take place:

1) Large comet hitting Earth and wiping out all life.

2) All-out world-wide nuclear war, destroying the entire power grid of the world.


Other than that, the future of music is very bright indeed.

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AndrewB said:

- Record sales, music videos, publicity campaigns, and industry-forced-popularity figures (think Britney and N'Sync) will collapse to likely less than 2% of their current state of existence. Industry-chosen figures will no longer be able to simply grab popularity through forced repetition and exposure to the public. This means NO MORE POP-CULTURE ____.


Now that's what I can't wait for when the music industry dies out! That shit's gone on for too long! I hope this happens sooner than expected!

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It's impossible to take capitalism and economy out of the picture; therefore, there will always be a music "market" of sorts, especially since a) the musicians need to support themselves (if every musician in the world is forced to get a full-time job to fund their musical interests then the entire musical world will grind to a halt); and b) without the necessary funds, things like live shows, merchandise, CDs, and even any reasonable kind of distribution cease to exist. Even internet servers and such cost money, and it's idiotic to think that the internet can turn into some kind of free-love hippie commune without some huge economic and practical backlash. But there IS an absolutely enormous problem with the modern music industry (incoming massive copy-paste from a LJ entry I wrote months ago!):

In the past, the recording companies were a necessary catalyst for the growth of modern music, because of their superiority in distribution and recording equipment; and because the industry was still growing, a variety of new acts were marketed and advertised. In modern times, however, professional recording equipment no longer remains primarily in the hands of the industry, and distribution through smaller companies and other channels has become an entirely viable alternative. Not only this, but advertisement and marketing are restricted primarily to already-established acts, or those that fit (or were specifically created to fit) the newer trends. Less established or immediately profitable artists receive very little advertising attention. From the point of view of the modern musician who isn't already established, the necessary services of production, distribution and marketing are no longer the sole province of the record companies and may, in fact, be provided in a manner more befitting the needs of the musician by other channels. In this sense, the modern record company is an anachronism, a monolithic obsolesence that exists only through its previous holdings.

Far worse, however, is the parasitic and duplicitous nature of the record company's tactics and practices. To a burgeoning musician, signing onto a major record label could be financially disastrous: commonly, a newer musician makes very little in royalties on a first album, and often finds himself in great debt because of recording costs and other expenses. Meanwhile, the record company pockets the overwhelming majority of the profits garnered from the musician, and because of contract stipulations and the musician's debt can use him as a profit-gaining tool without having to provide any real services for him (I need to find the article that has the actual numbers and specifics of this, but I know I have the link somewhere). Essentially, the record company relies entirely on the musician for its livelihood; and unless a musician is already established, he receives very little in return. This relationship can be defined as nothing other than parasitic. The practices towards the listening constituency of the recording companies are equally reprehensible. Though CD manufacturing costs very little today, the record companies have specifically mandated that CD prices cannot fall below a certain price, and several have already been convicted of price-fixing. And unless one is willing to go to great lengths to find music through independent labels, the market saturation of the record companies, through TV, radio, and magazine, dictates listening material to the customer with little alternative in choice. This not only considerably narrows the ability of the customer to find different kinds of music, but it imposes the necessity of marketability on aspiring musicians, further narrowing the range of music available to the general public and seriously reducing the opportunities for innovation and creative freedom of the artists. Through overpriced products, skewed and pandering marketing, and the abuse of musicians, the record companies have established themselves as entirely disrespectful to the customer and musician alike, existing as a parasitic entity in the market.

In a true laissez-faire setting, without any assistance by the government and such, the record companies might have already collapsed by now under the weight of their own obsolesence. But the magic of the RIAA and copyright law has prevented the consequences of their policies and, in fact, has taken steps to increase their dominance. The advent of the MP3 incited an overwhelmingly negative reaction towards the obvious price-fixing committed by the companies, which should have acted as an indicator of market dissatisfaction. But the RIAA, along with a number of meetings between government associations and recording industry CEOs that were not made public, decided that the customer was not their benefactor, but instead their adversary. The shutdown of networks such as Napster was entirely understandable and within their rights; the passing of new copyright laws, stipulating that a CD is not in fact the property of the customer but is in fact the property of the record company, under the idea of "usage rights," as well as the attempt to charge royalties for used CDs already out of their hands, was not. The record companies have the right to protect already existing copyrights, but to redefine property and consumer possessions entirely to their advantage steps outside of reasonable boundaries. In essence, when the Invisible Hand of capitalism began to make the consequences of their abuses known, they fled to the government to "make the bad man go away." Instead of a protectionism from foreign exports, the recording industry demands protectionism from the laws of capitalism itself.

As long as the recording industry stubbornly maintains its policy of negligence towards the customer and musicians, it will continue to stagnate and deteriorate, and will carry a great deal of modern music culture with it. And as long as it and the RIAA insist on skewing government policy in their favor to the detriment of the customer - who has all but been directly accused as their enemy - there will be little the independent sector can do in response.

Hopefully the music industry giants will, eventually, begin to alter their practices and work with the musicians and general public instead of against them, but considering the nature of modern corporate dominance and its extremly solid links with government policy this seems somewhat unlikely.

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andrewb, i am shocked that i agree with you. copyright laws need to be deeply and seriously re-engineered now that we live in the age of flawless and effortless personal duplication of media.

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Obviously preaching to the choir, but good points nonetheless.

Let the bands set up PayPal links on their websites. Let their fans donate a buck for every song they pirate and like. One dollar buys almost 1500 listens under the current royalty structure, and goes straight to the bands without prinitng costs, advertising costs, or label profiteering. Remove music videos from their flashy, high-production-cost purpose of selling crappy music with image appeal; let them go back to their roots, filling space before movies in theatres or on HBO.

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Ubik said:

It's impossible to take capitalism and economy out of the picture; therefore, there will always be a music "market" of sorts, especially since a) the musicians need to support themselves (if every musician in the world is forced to get a full-time job to fund their musical interests then the entire musical world will grind to a halt); and b) without the necessary funds, things like live shows, merchandise, CDs, and even any reasonable kind of distribution cease to exist.

Flaws in your logic. This has nothing to do with taking capitalism and economy out of the picture. Rather the opposite. It's the music industry that's trying to take capitalisms and economy out of the picture, but their attemps will eventually prove futile.

What you're missing is that musical interests don't require nearly the same funding they used to. A talented person CAN record their music in their own home. There will be the good and the bad. And you say that without the necessary funds, things like live shows, merchandise, CDs, and distribution cease to exist. You're right, except for live shows and distribution. Live shows will pay for themselves, and again, file-sharing is the distribution of the future. Like it or not, that's the reality. The concept of paying to listen to music in private is outdated.

Again, the point is that YES, that other stuff will cease to exist. Merchandise will be hard to come by, CD's will be collector's items, and pop culture will be all but dead. It will be an enormous change, but all for the best.

The vast majority of bands and groups will fall through the cracks, but they don't belong where they are now anyway. The market is flooded with 98% garbage. Quantity will disappear, quality will prevail. Will it grind to a halt? Not entirely. The artists that actually have talent and don't care about money, they'll remain, sharing their music for free over the internet, and getting a few local live gigs. Believe me, there will be more than enough of people like that.

Even internet servers and such cost money, and it's idiotic to think that the internet can turn into some kind of free-love hippie commune without some huge economic and practical backlash.

Huge backlash? Yes! The music industry as we know it! And the internet won't be any more expensive than it already is. If the file-sharing method puts a strain on the internet, then service providers will adjust their prices to meet the demand.

[Huge article]

Hopefully the music industry giants will, eventually, begin to alter their practices and work with the musicians and general public instead of against them, but considering the nature of modern corporate dominance and its extremly solid links with government policy this seems somewhat unlikely.

But you see, there isn't any room for them to alter their practices. There's nothing the music companies can do. No legislation, no tracking devices, no hacking attemps can thwart their inevitable death. They're DOOMED. The world doesn't rely on cobblestones anymore.

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heh, i logged on kazaa earlier today and searched for some dimmu borgir. i clicked "search" and .5 seconds later it said "search completed" and there were no results. i clicked search again and the same thing happened. i looked at the bottom to see if i was even connected, and i was but there were like 80 users online with 800 files. i was like OMG WTF!! the first thing thru my mind was something terrible happened and kazaa had been shut down or some shit, cuz my psychology teacher at school friday was yakkin some crazy talk about the RIAA sending messages thru kazaa 200000 messages at a time and they somehow crashed some server somewhere or something. then i reconnected thinking that would fix it, and lo and behold the typical 4 million users were visible. :D guess i had a bad connection or somethin.
but, yeah, any of you hear the same rumor of the riaa trying to thwart the kazaa users into submission and not share files?

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The RIAA is trying to cure its own cancer by making cancer illegal. The analogies are endless.

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And again, the more that people turn to pirating, the sooner the reform will take place.

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AndrewB said:

And again, the more that people turn to pirating, the sooner the reform will take place.


As more and more people turn to piracy, "the man" will get desperate. They'll try to use their law to prosecute a few people, but only as examples, hoping people will freak out and stop pirating out of fear of prosecution, even though one's odds of being prosecuted are like their odds of getting hit by lightning. If everyone is aware that it is just an impotent scare-tactic, though, then people will not be afraid of it. This knowledge must be spread if we are to be successful in reforming the music industry into a music COMMUNITY.

EDIT: I say that the odds of being prosecuted are low because when mass-prosecutions start the law will be removed in order to prevent the courts from becoming congested and crippled.

EDIT AGAIN: Eh... you know, I forgot that people are stupid and get scared and run around in large groups like headless chickens. Fuck it, there's no way that people will choose to be strong facing even a 1 in a million chance of prosecution. They're just too stupid. Of course, there are those that are smart enough, but oh so few...

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Well said and accurate.

Besides, mass prosecutions aren't viable even conceptually. Because someone has to really really screw up to be caught. Like a sodomy law. But let's not get into that.

One of the death cards for the music industry is the fact that they can't prove anything. 99% of those prosecuted would be found not guilty.

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How do you charge a music pirate? As many tiny misdemeanors as he has files on his hard drive? How do you prove he hasn't bought and ripped CDs himself? How do you preserve and authenticate electronic evidence?

It's the kind of thing the arresting officer would be embarrased to sign her name on. It's enough to make the most dedicated deputy district attorney say "fuck it, I ain't charging this, I'm going home early tonight". It's the kind of thing a judge would dismiss outright, if not laugh out of his courtroom.

No, music piracy is a crime tried only in civil court. And while RIAA attorneys can be MEAN sumbitches, there aren't enough court summons in the world to shut down every music pirate in the US alone.

Not to mention the fact that the RIAA has no legal influence outside of the Americas. This is where I advertise my confidential, secure Swiss webhosting service.

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I said:

EDIT AGAIN: Eh... you know, I forgot that people are stupid and get scared and run around in large groups like headless chickens. Fuck it, there's no way that people will choose to be strong facing even a 1 in a million chance of prosecution. They're just too stupid. Of course, there are those that are smart enough, but oh so few...

AndrewB said:

In my opinion, you edited it twice and it's less accurate now.


OK, I expressed my lack of faith in the masses, and you disagreed. Tell us again, what was that bullet you dodged by avoiding public school? :P I do go to a public school and it gives you insight into how stupid both the masses and the administration can be.

AndrewB said:

One of the death cards for the music industry is the fact that they can't prove anything. 99% of those prosecuted would be found not guilty.


They would need only refer to your ISP's logs, from there they'd be able to trace every server you had gone through to get to the ISP of the person(s) you got your file(s) from. Your hard drive could also be used as evidence, and without a doubt there is plenty of spyware placed in most of the filesharing clients to keep track of your transactions. Even the things you delete are probably still there, just not referenced by the FAT or whatever kind of filesystem one is using. They would need only piece the files together themselves. Sure, it would take some time, but they would only need a pattern to look for. The only way they couldn't prove anything is if they really didn't have the slightest clue what they're looking for.

The burden of proof may lie with the prosecution, but when it comes to computers, proof isn't much of a burden at all.

IMJack said:

It's the kind of thing the arresting officer would be embarrased to sign her name on.


Since common police and common state due process laws don't really have any valid way to approach any of this, the federal government may, out of some sense of wanting to provide justice for the corporates, found a special police agency that has power only in matters along these lines. Kinda like the IRS, that...

Anyway, as it gets later tonight, I'm forgetting how to speak English and all, so I should probably leave this discussion until tomorrow.

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IMJack = Completely correct...

And anothing thing to add. You don't have to wait 20 years for this revolutionized community. It already exists. Just pirate all your music (it's really the right, moral thing to do), shut off MTV, and seek internet word of mouth for impressive, talented artists.

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Ultraviolet said:

Since common police and common state due process laws don't really have any valid way to approach any of this, the federal government may, out of some sense of wanting to provide justice for the corporates, found a special police agency that has power only in matters along these lines. Kinda like the IRS, that...

Anyway, as it gets later tonight, I'm forgetting how to speak English and all, so I should probably leave this discussion until tomorrow.

Orwellian nonsense. It would still have to go through the regular criminal justice system; no Camp X-ray for white-collar criminals like us. Extranationality would still stop them. And what kind of self-respecting copper would sign up for such a thing?

Look around you. The Internet, web sites and message boards like this one, people like you and me are the antithesis of Orwellian mind-control theory.

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IMJack said:

people like you and me are the antithesis of Orwellian mind-control theory.


Aww, I'm flattered. :)
Can't say I really believe I have any power to fight that, though. We are few. Without the majority we cannot stand. I have seen that most people live only to be pacified, and as long as the government provides "bread and circusses" (see fall of Rome), the people don't really give a shit about what's going on behind the scenes. We've got our narrow little lives where we live in fish tanks under climate control, we are regularly fed, and that is all we know. We are as blindable as anyone else.

It's not about mind control, it's about making us compromise ourselves. "The government" has the resources to use the ultimate high-level non-physical martial art against us. The age of slaves driven by whips is gone, we are now driven by blindness.

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Self-justification for stealing music doesn't make you any less of a thief.

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Arioch said:

Self-justification for stealing music doesn't make you any less of a thief.

What, I'm a thief just because I'm breaking the law?

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Arioch said:

Self-justification for stealing music doesn't make you any less of a thief.

The thing is...

I NEVER DOWNLOAD MUSIC. MY ENTIRE MUSIC COLLECTION... consists of ripped CD's.

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Did you buy those CD's?
Just playing the devil's advocate a little here, no doubt the same thing Arioch was going for. :P

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My mom/dad did, and technically, they also bought a majority of the computer in which the songs are ripped to.

I heard the CD's a lot through my years. Some of them have real nostalgia and entertainment value, and therefore they're good for occasional listening.

The point is that I never, yes, never download pirated music. No desire whatsoever.

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