What are your questions on downloading & copying music legally?

adouglasmhor

sugarcoma101 wrote: »

adouglasmhor wrote: »

you don't even need or possibly have the tech to do that, ISPs could be allowed or made to block illegal downloads or charge end users the correct fees. Then I would not have the problem of my ISP throttling my account when downloading a new Linux or BSD OS.

I suggest you do some reading on the Digital Economy Bill which will come into law in June 2010.

govt_sumary_of_Digital_Economy_ACT_(out_of_Date_again_sugarcoma101) wrote:

To take technical measures against infringing subscribers
It also provides a power for the Secretary of State to introduce Regulations for rights holders to seek a court injunction to prevent access to specified online locations for the prevention of online copyright infringement

That is what I said except it would be better if ISPs could do that

lightwave_2

Bringing this back on topic AGAIN (I have some questions for the BPI below), the comments that have been made about TPB court case gave me some reading to do. But the interesting point is that the industry the BPI represents is itself split. I'm sure it's a minority of the industry who disagrees, but while I can understand the approach of the music (and movie) industry to make a landmark case out of TPB - they have massive corporations and profits to protect, and they want to create new legal precedents to do so - unfortunately, time is not on their side.

Firstly, the record industry didn't keep up with the new digital music distribution innovations, and don't like it biting them on the !!! (to coin a phrase) now that they're losing revenue to illegal file sharing. They missed a trick and not even iTunes can catch up to damn the flood of illegal downloading. Clearly they want to reign things in and protect their business, however I'm sure it wouldn't take much research to discover that the vast majority of illegal fileshares ages are skewed towards teens and "young" people, on a sloping downward trend with increasing age.

It's these people... who aren't getting younger or earning less money as time goes on, who are increasingly considering the music industry as the profit-hunting, greedy, undeserving corporations that they don't really want to support. In this light, the industry's representation of artists is damaging their reputation with [potential] consumers.

"Over 25,000 people joined the Swedish Pirate Party in the ten days following the guilty verdict, raising its membership to over 40,000 members and making it the fourth-largest Swedish party by membership count at the time, and the party with the largest youth organisation."

These people are the future representitives of society. This statistic alone suggests to me that the BPI is trying to fight a losing battle, and by supporting legislation to cut off internet users which is unpopular with the society they rely on to generate their profits, they are only driving more people to consider their illegal activity as justifiable.

You can say "illegal activity is never justifiable", but that is the true moot point if less and less people listen or care. Western governments of capitalist countries will always be under pressure from large corporations to protect their profits, but there has to be a time coming where the public that vote them into power will no longer support that notion if they feel unfairly persecuted by parties acting on behalf of greedy corporations instead of constituants.

So the question to the BPI from all this is; How do they expect to maintain support for the music industry from the young population who spend their disposable income on music, when support is clearly growing against their proposed three-strike strategy from upcoming age groups?

Perhaps another question; Does the BPI think they can win the hearts and minds of an internet-savvy youth by threatening them with disconnection from the internet?

Bearing in mind that when a teenager buys or receives an iPod that holds tens of gigabytes of music, they want to fill it up. I can say with almost absolute certainty that barely any teenagers can afford to pay for the music it would take to fill that iPod - so they won't pay - they'll find a way to get it for free, even if that means going "old-skool" and copying it from someone else who has it. Which at the end of the day is no different to downloading it from the internet.

charleyhellfire

sugarcoma101 wrote: »

It's not criminal to charge consumers a fair price for a product that costs money to produce in the first place.

I didn't say it was, I have no problem with the initial product you've made, you should get paid for the couple of hours of work you've put in... expecting that same wedge of cash continually for the next 50 years is where the criminality comes in, especially when you've got the full weight of the establishment behind you.

lightwave_2

I realise I could have been more succinct. What I'm trying to point out is, that following a court case which the music industry would hope is a legal landmark to protect copyright and profits, the Pirate Party saw a massive increase in members and now forms the fourth largest political party in Sweden with the largest young persons representation.

This sends a clear message to the music industry - the youth don't agree with you. In fact, they oppose you. The music industry is smashing a wrecking ball into any reputation it may hope to hold with the people they expect to support them financially.

The battle seems lost to me.

sugarcoma101

charleyhellfire wrote: »

I didn't say it was, I have no problem with the initial product you've made, you should get paid for the couple of hours of work you've put in... expecting that same wedge of cash continually for the next 50 years is where the criminality comes in, especially when you've got the full weight of the establishment behind you.

Again, you're not making sense and not making any clear points.

What 'wedge of cash' are you talking about!?

So you buy a vinyl 20 years ago, and therefore you have the right to recieve it on CD, MP3, USB, and every other available format even though you only paid a tenner for the vinyl in the fist place?

Yes sir, that makes fantastic economic sense.

By that logic, you buy a BMW 20 years ago, and every subsequent upgrade on that car, you have the god given right to recieve free of charge.

Excellent logic.

adouglasmhor

lightwave wrote: »

I realise I could have been more succinct. What I'm trying to point out is, that following a court case which the music industry would hope is a legal landmark to protect copyright and profits, the Pirate Party saw a massive increase in members and now forms the fourth largest political party in Sweden with the largest young persons representation.

This sends a clear message to the music industry - the youth don't agree with you. In fact, they oppose you. The music industry is smashing a wrecking ball into any reputation it may hope to hold with the people they expect to support them financially.

The battle seems lost to me.

The pirate party is in decline. Possibly nothing more than a protest party against what were attacks on tradional Swedish liberalism. http://www.thelocal.se/26142/20100418

sugarcoma101

lightwave wrote: »

I realise I could have been more succinct. What I'm trying to point out is, that following a court case which the music industry would hope is a legal landmark to protect copyright and profits, the Pirate Party saw a massive increase in members and now forms the fourth largest political party in Sweden with the largest young persons representation.

This sends a clear message to the music industry - the youth don't agree with you. In fact, they oppose you. The music industry is smashing a wrecking ball into any reputation it may hope to hold with the people they expect to support them financially.

The battle seems lost to me.

Out of date info from Wikipedia lightwave. This was published a week ago here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/20/pirate_bay_trial_one_year_on/

Pirate Party membership in Sweden has plummeted by around 50 per cent as erstwhile supporters fail to renew their alliance to the party.
The outfit saw a surge in interest this time last year when the four co-founders of The Pirate Bay had just been found guilty in a Swedish court of being accessories to breaching copyright laws.


Since then, the issue of illegal file sharing on the web has gone from being a hot to lukewarm political potato and free membership of the Pirate Party, which stood at 50,000 people in the spring of 2009, has now slipped to around 25,000 in Sweden in the last few days.

sugarcoma101

lightwave wrote: »

This sends a clear message to the music industry - the youth don't agree with you. In fact, they oppose you. The music industry is smashing a wrecking ball into any reputation it may hope to hold with the people they expect to support them financially.

The battle seems lost to me.

Of course 'the youth' oppose paying for anything fairly when it's relatively socially acceptable (and becoming less so) to get it for free.

lightwave_2

Fair enough, I concede that information is outdated (without checking, I take both of your words for it). However, if people don't renew their membership that doesn't mean that the youth don't still disagree with the music industry. I wouldn't have thought that anything the music industry has done in the last year would have got any of those 25000 ex-members back on-side.

If indeed the topic has since become a lukewarm political potato I imagine the youth are simply more apathetic to the politics involved while they continue to do as they do back at home. As such, I'm sure a change in legislation won't leave much of a dent in the illegal downloading statistics.

All of which leads to another question for the BPI: Even then, what do statistics mean for the music industry? If illegal downloading appears to decrease as a result of such legislation but profits within the industry remain the same or reduce then nothing has been accomplished? However they will have spent millions on legal counsel so I'm sure the lawyers are doing well out of this.

adouglasmhor

Lightwave Swedish music is punishment enough on it's own.