Stealing Music

I tried to find another post like this but failing that......

Ok. Let be honest guys. Downloading illegal music from programs like KaZaA and the late Napster IS stealing.

It is nothing but rotten theft. I have had people i know viciously defending this practise by saying things like (the artist makes the money from touring) and ( the money only goes to the record company anyway)

Well. That doesnt matter in the slightest. If you truly love your music or your favourite band it shouldnt bother you to actually pay them to listen to their music.

I buy at least two albums a week, sometimes more. and i am proud to support whomever i listen to. If you use the legal downloading techniques like Itunes store or other place. thats fine. But please,
if you love your artist. Respect them by buying the music. They deserve it.

</rant>

i don't download stuff, just cos i'm too computer illeterate to know how, but if i get someone to burn a cd for me, i have a bit of a think about the artist. if it's someone who is dead, they don't need the money, ditto if they're already making heaps. but if they're just making a name for themselves though i wouldn't burn it, cos they need the sales. i never burn independent artists.

that said though i never buy train tickets, even though i know that the public transport system needs the money and could make so many improvements if people like me actually paid, so yeah, i'm a hypocrit

Lets face it, the record industry refused to integrate internet technology for years and years cuz it reduced the margins on thier overpriced music. So much so that they actually created another 'diverse' industry that shook them to the ground. Thus, finally, after losing the control they exploited for so long, they bowed to the modern innovations and embraced the web based music sharing technology giving cheap legal downloads to all homes. This industry is now expanding at super fast speeds.

I think it'd be more prudent if the huge music companies, like Sony, paid artists a fair rate instead of giving certain people like Robbie Williams £60 million ($100mUS) for a 5 year contract because another overpaid marketing machine can sell his records to the pre-teen market while not actually bother promoting any 'real' music.

I've met quite a few musicians over the years, from big time to small time. Touring locally and internationally. When asked what they think of the d/l scene as a whole; music, spoken word, films, books, software, (I notice you don't mention any of these) they they say they like it. Infact I've never met a band who doesn't use it!

I agree it's stealing, (although sometime d/l music can introduce you to a new band of which you go and buy the album of) I agree it has taken some money from the mouth of artists, I have done both and I will continue to do so. But I think we should look at the root cause of the problem, instead of wearing blinkers to the whole issue and simply blaming the symptoms. The big labels have been stealing from the mouth of artists for years, when Sony 'bought' up as many independants as it could around 8-10 years ago it did a whole lot more damage for the artists than the internet downloading ever has.

So my point is....labels protecting over sized profits off the back of artists while keeping many of the artists on the bread line caused the revolution, they need to catch up to it or die resisting. The music will carry on, ltes face it all real bands start at home with their own equipment and with new technologies and available information they'll be able to release their own albums without the need of major label corporations. Lets hope they do it soon.

Didn't a study show that the increased spread of music through internet piracy has actually helped the record industry and that sales have risen?

I'm not trying to defend people who download music for the sake of having a huge music collection, but I download music of bands I've never heard of before. If I like them and can find the cd then I'll buy it, otherwise I'll delete it. I see no problem whatsoever with doing this.

sales have gone down a lot, I've recently seen figures, and even number one albums rarely get a golden record anymore.

I also think it's fair enough that people who make millions happy with their music earn millions for it, even though lots of the top-earners are what I'd call crap. But then, when I was 12, I was listening to crap as well and enjoyed it a lot...

Isnt there an enormus thread on this somewhere.

i cant find it though, which is ironic coz i think think durbs started it.

pity coz it was really good. and huuuugeeee.

I saw the other thread too, but here's my take on it anyway..

Even though I download music, I buy a lot more now too, more so than before - and that's because I would never have heard of a lot of the bands/artists in the first place had it not been for its availability via p2p networks. I think this is why CD sales are actually on the increase.

see recent story :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4150747.stm

By suing students in bedsits I reckon that the BPI/RIAA are simply after more control and a bigger market share, rather than "artist rights".. which the record industry has a long history of abusing anyway.

look.
i dont pay for records.
i dont download.
i share among my friends and people i meet.

honestly, before this whole internet download deal started, i used to copy my friends cds onto minidiscs.

my dad used to copy vinyl onto tapes

and only now people are freaking out about it because theres some sort of financial damage done to the whole entertainment system.

i dont want to give more money to this system that keeps spewing out crap. maybe this will make them stop.

new independent artists, i support by going to their shows and making as many ppl as possible listen to their music.

i'm all for supporting artists if i like their stuff and it enriches my life, but artists dont need *that* much money to buy equipment or even make a living out of it. I don't feel that bad about ripping off a huge multinational corperation, but i do about small artists.

Anyway, this has been discussed much before (see yoink! above)

I use Itunes. I refuse to pay the extortionate prices of music shops, yet I wouldn't out and out steal music. So...I bought an Ipod and I buy all my music cheaply off iTunes! voila...problem solved

I share music with friends and if I like it I buy it!

There is a lot of stuff in my CD collection that I've never heard elsewhere and bands that I would not have come across otherwise...

Out of interest, how much do you have to pay for getting music from itunes?

I think so... I buy albums if I want them.. but if I just want a single.. or a really obscure song.. or and old theme tune.. I download...

If someone can email me a copy of "Oh what a feeling" it would be mighty handy.

"Oh what a feeling,
where we're dancing on the ceiling"

You know the one.

PM for my email address.

Thank youuuuuu!

When the record companies stop stealing my thoughts ill stop stealing their music.

it also depends on what you class as stealing music. if you bought a cd, thought your mate might like it, so put the into your CD drive, and then sent it to a friend over an IM program or via email, because you couldn't go round to his/her's so you could show it to him/her, then would that still be stealing?

also most programs such as Kazaa, Limewire, Aries and the like are all sharing programs: ie it's in someways a big community and someone along the lines has actually paid for the song's people are downloading

If I hear a song I like, I download the album. This is because too often in the past did I buy an album on the strength of a good song, only to find the rest of the album's crap, quickly hashed together to cash in on the popularity of the one track, or that that one track was simply different from their typical sound, which I then didn't like.

This is stealing, but hear me out... if it's crap, I've found out, and I delete it. It's perfectly ok to go into HMV and 'trial' listen to an album, I just prefer to do it at home. If I like it after a week's worth of listening, that album goes on my 'to buy' list. I tend to buy when the albums are on sale, admittedly, but I do buy them. I don't want to steal, If I think it's worth listening to, it should in theory be worth paying for (although maybe not the almost £15 new release price!), and I do like to have a hardcopy. Thus, downloading has made me a paying customer for that band

Not a perfect system, by any means, but it helps me ease my conscience...

I've not got an iPod and have never been to iTunes but I remember there being anger over the difference in cost. In the US a song cost 99c where as in the UK it was 99p, this meant that (like most things) it was about half the price in the US.

Thousands of bands are discovered over the Internet, over forums etc. If it wasn't for the Internet so many bands would take longer to be discovered. Not all CD shops have the bands you want...and not everyone can afford to order import CD's of a band no one's heard of...and half the time they can't find the artist anyway.

It's going to be around no matter what and I don't think there is anyway we can stop it for good. People will everalways create more and more programs to download music from.

If downloading music is stealing.... so is taping your favourite TV shows...

no no no iTunes costs less.

It's 75p a song or £8.99 a whole album. sometimes it's less for older albums.

It used to cost more in the U.K. but people complained

I have an iPod and I've been really pleased with iTunes. it's great and cheaper than shops

Downloading music is a victimless crime.... Well it doesn't affect anyone i care about. Rewritable cd manufacturers and mp3 player manufacturers are making some good money out of it though. Its not as if band members will starve and die if a few squid is taken from them ,they could get regular jobs like the rest of us after all u dont need a massive house and tonns of cash to be happy.

this sort of topic belongs in the social discussion section, not the social chat section... will some helpful mod move it?

This has already been discussed in Social discussion.

IMO stealing is stealing is stealing. If you don't want people to steal from you then don't steal from them. If you are willing to steal then you must be willing to be the victim of someone elses stealing.

I just posted a really long reply in durb's original thread . too long to repeat here...

I don't buy or share with friends, i use limewire. (free and legal, even apparently comes with apple macs)

i get ALL my music from a site (not naming names)...................it's all dj mixes and free and there are some quality tunes on there but apart from the mp3 downloads the site is a foul and despicable place