Music downloads, how legal is legal enough?

beachbeth

beachbeth wrote:

Thanks for that. How much is $10 in pounds sterling?

Anybody? Is this equal to pence in British money?

macca64

$10 is approx £5.60ish.

JasonLVC

I thought artists did it for the art, not the money?. It's a poor excuse to say that the russian site is illegal when, at current state of play, it isn't. It might not be fair or right, but that is different to breaking the law.

I accept that not every artist is a millionaire, but then, every single person on this website has a job that is somehow affected by theft or illegal activity. eg, food costs go up to compensate for the stock that is stolen at Asda, downloading movies means cinemas close down, car insurance goes up because of those that don't have any, high street stores close as they can't compete with internet stores. Plus the best of all is the booze cruisers who go to France for the day and buy all their beer and fags for a year - tax free. Or is it okay to steal from a government but not a corporation or an indivudal?.

What I'm saying here is that what makes artists so special anyway?. So your copyright is stolen, that's not fair, but no dfferent to sneaking a mate into the cinema as a kid or going strawberry picking in the summer and eating more in the field than you actually buy from the farmer (to which I admit!)

The face of the retail market is changing radically as a result of the internet and companies can either keep up or die. Music industry is choosing to fight when it should be innovating. The reality is, their little secret is out and people now know exactly how much they've been ripped off these last few years. The music industry even sued CD-WOW last year as they were selling CD's too cheaply through grey imports. That is, LEGAL merchandise for which copyright and royalties are paid...but at a lower rate for a foreign market. Sounds like we should be suing the music indsutry for fraud.

Martin has every right to place this thread on this site as it is not illegal and is in the spirit of the sites purpose which is to make money from big corporations - be that getting your bank charges back, exploting a loop-hole in a marekting campaign or just a mis-price at tescos. All fair game to me.

Patr100

To be honest I'd never heard of this Russian site, except after Martin's email - but then I'm not much of a music downloader. Aside from the possible illegalities of downloading, what would deter me is providing my credit card details to a remote internet business not covered by UK, EU or even US laws.

psycho89

I had a look at AllofMP3 but each time the "Paypal" payment option was "not available" ? I was a bit unsure about the other options given the nature and location of the site.

How do you guys pay for the service ?

adm_4

I've registered. no need for CC at this point and got emailed $0.20 free credit which mean I can get ~2 songs for free.
Interesting wording though. They claim to encode the song for you (after you choose format). ie they are producing something for you not copying..? Seems it would only be worded like this is they think it makes it (more) legal this way?

Mikiec

Not sure if you guys have heard this story but sounds like the authorities have declared AllOfMP3.com illegal, so you'd all better be careful if you decide to part with your money.

Check out this article at AfterDawn...

http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/7591.cfm

Maybe this is why the PayPal option has gone as mentioned by psycho88 above.

Bernard_Coleslaw

Mikiec wrote:

Not sure if you guys have heard this story but sounds like the authorities have declared AllOfMP3.com illegal, so you'd all better be careful if you decide to part with your money.

Check out this article at AfterDawn...

http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/7591.cfm

Maybe this is why the PayPal option has gone as mentioned by psycho88 above.

Just to correct you a bit. According to the link you posted, the authorities (i.e. the legal powers-that-be, police, courts, etc) have not declared the site illegal. The IFPI have. The IFPI is the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, i.e. the trade association for record companies.

Of course they'd say it was illegal.:D

sedgi

Historically, there has been a demand for the distribution of music on formats such as tape, vinyl and cd, becuase of the difficulty of obtaining copies of the recorded works by any other means. With the advent of online music sharing however, there is now a dwindling demand for the distribution networks which the record labels are there to provide.

The fact of the matter is that if there was a website set up that (after expenses) forwarded all the profits to the artists im sure we'd all use it. However the creation of such a website clearly goes against the interests of the record labels, which are still hell bent on acting as middle men in a market where there is now no such need.

Whilst i have every sympathy for the artists that have had their (often modest) revenues reduced due to illegal downloads, i have absolutely no sympathy for the record industries, who bully both the artists and the consumer into doing business through themselves. Websites such as myspace.com are a great help to unsigned artists, but in my opinion we need some sort of 'not for profit' record companies to emerge so that we can put the money in the pockets of the people actually doing the work.

Ebeneezer

As the charges are in dollars is there a conversion charge put on your credit card or are all payments taken in sterling. When I looked at the site I was put off by the dollar signs.