Heartland

I think Media Fire is the best service, and hopefully they'll stick around

http://blog.mediafire.com/2012/01/media ... ge-market/

The first time the problem "illegal copying is ruining the artists" made everyone sleepless was in the 90s. And now we're in the 10ies and they haven't come up with *any* new concept? I fail to feel sorry for the industry

Despite all the piracy in China, still, in numbers, the best-selling artist of the past decade is a Taiwanese pop singer (and wannabe actor, if any of you've seen the Green Hornet ) , Jay Chou. The Asian record companies allow to share medium-quality mp3s and even put the full songs online themselves as previews. At the same time, the physical releases are very intricate and well-made, so if you like the music, you really need the CD, the packaging and everything that comes with it. They don't do ugly old digipacks in Asia, and that's (I think) why they physically sell. Some friends who are into Korean music tell me that it's actually getting a hassle because you don't know how to store these mahoosive booklets and all anymore.

Sita wrote:The first time the problem "illegal copying is ruining the artists" made everyone sleepless was in the 90s.

The thing is, it's not the first time.

Home Taping is Killing Music

Did home taping kill music?

Home taping isn't comperable to Net piracy.

markfiend wrote:
Did home taping kill music?

Nah.
The music industry more or less killed themselves over a long period of time

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/24 ... _part_one/

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/29 ... _part_two/

markfiend wrote:
Did home taping kill music?

its not just music......my avatar says it all!!

The FBI allegations against Megaupload include the claim that they made $200 million from $500 million worth of copyright material. If the MPAA / RIAA / etc. got off their arses and provided ways for us, the consumer, to download their content easily and legally, for a fee, just imagine how much money they could make.

(Since Amazon introduced mp3 downloads I haven't downloaded any "illegal" music at all.)

Instead, the industry pulls a King Canute, and say "Nobody can download our stuff! Not nobody, not nohow!" F*ck 'em.

sam1 wrote:

markfiend wrote:
Did home taping kill music?

its not just music......my avatar says it all!!

Absolutely seconded! Should all the people starve who cannot afford going to a restaurant?
They need food. And they should have the variance of food they need.

Can't remember what artist is was who said: if you can't buy my records, go and steal them!

And that's what people have to do, if the "community" excludes them from basic resources claiming the world belonged
to those who can afford paying for their existence, thus objecting the right to live by their personal tenure.

Anyway, there are artists and artists ... as has always been. Some don't care, some don't even think.
However, this is the typical example where it becomes entirely obvious that what the "market",
its companies and politics have in mind is not the well-being of humanity as they always pretend.
Or have they given up pretending, lately? ... ...

[quote="Being645
Can't remember what artist is was who said: if you can't buy my records, go and steal them!

[/quote]

System of a Down have a record called "Steal This Record!"

You one eye blind people, we got few threads where our Artists (FGG, ARF) explained that making music even on small scale, without PR machine, ads and so costs helluva and more. This was only about music, i guess, less expensive brach of enterainment ind. Now take a look at costs of making filums, PC/PSP/X-BOX games or software- it takes whole lot more money, so they really losing their money.
In music artists got gig on what they made most of the cash (and sell tees, CD and so to make additional/extra money), on films, games, softwares it's impossible to find such opportuities. (well ok on films and games on tees, action figures it's also possible to make money, but if it's not Hary Poter, Whinnie the Pooh or other Mickey Mouse or Star Wars, it's not likely to make that money to cover financial hole made my stealing works.)

And be honst ent ind. before ACTA did what they can to procect copyrugths of their artistis, now it can easier for them to enforce it.

its such a grey area when you talk about the morality and social justice of illegally downloading copyrighted works

for example, the cast & crew will still have been paid if my next door neighbour downloads a hooky version of "the hangover 2", and so many people went to see it at the cinema, or bought the dvd/blu ray etc etc etc, that the studio will still have their pound of flesh in return for the cost of making it. that's not even including the tv rights that sky or itv or whoever pays warner bros to show it.

however, if my cousin downloads a dodgy copy of the new adele album, she might not get that many sales and might get dropped from her label (yay! would that be proof of god?).

or if my mate downloads the new album by some young indie press darlings (who are copying the sound and style of some band that no one liked in 1978), they might not have the money to be able to record another self-financed album.

or if the lad across the street downloads a knocked-off copy of skyrim for his chipped xbox360, bethesda (the people who made it) that will be directly loosing money on the game, and might decide not to release a sequel, or whatever

on the flip side, ms windows and ms office are some of the most pirated software in the history of computing, but do you see ms struggling?

my point is that its disingenuous to combine all these different kinds of media under one banner when talking about the potentially disastrous effects of piracy/illegal downloading. piracy has very different knock-on effects for films, tv, music, software, games etc

in short, i have no idea what the answer is, but i accept that megaupload et al where treading on very dodgy ground, and whilst i'm saddened and inconvenienced by their removal, i'm happy to hold my hands up and say "ahh, damn! you got me!" - i'm not going to whine about it being taken away.






so, more importantly, where can i download all those obscure 80s indie & alternative vinyl-to-mp3 transfers that aren't available on cd now?

Almost every piece of music I downloaded illegally was either:

• Something I already owned (perhaps on vinyl rather than CD) and simply couldn't be bothered to rip. Why should I pay again for content I already own?
• Something I have since been out and bought (on CD or paid download). The "try-before-you-buy" paradigm has been demonstrated to lead to increased sales.
• Something impossible to obtain legally (dimeadozen etc.).

As for films and TV shows: I have a huge archive of things that have been on TV (on VHS tapes, and then DVD-Rs). In some cases, rather than going through the hassle of converting them to computer-legible format (which, in theory, I could) I have gone out and bought the DVDs, in other cases (particularly when the material isn't available to buy) I have downloaded them.

For instance, the DVDs of The Young Ones (which I bought, despite having all twelve episodes recorded from the TV onto VHS) doesn't have the song on the episode Cash for some boring contractual reason. The BBC had no compunction in selling me a DVD with one very badly cut episode, therefore I feel no compunction in downloading the "full" episode. This is content that I have, in some sense, paid for twice: once from the TV license, and a second time by buying the DVD.

Another example: new episodes of The Big Bang Theory are shown on UK TV about 4 weeks after they're first shown on US TV. I don't see what harm it does for me to torrent the new episodes when they come out rather than waiting a month and recording it off the telly...

Quiff Boy wrote:

so, more importantly, where can i download all those obscure 80s indie & alternative vinyl-to-mp3 transfers that aren't available on cd now?

we can always go back to snail mail trading..until such times the post is censored!!

sam1 wrote:

Quiff Boy wrote:

so, more importantly, where can i download all those obscure 80s indie & alternative vinyl-to-mp3 transfers that aren't available on cd now?

we can always go back to snail mail trading..until such times the post is censored!!

I'd not even thought of the royal mail.
Possibly the biggest next vehicle of piracy today (now hosting sites have all but stopped). Don't see them getting shut down & her maj getting dragged off to jail.

@ Unsere Führer: You know that i could easily turn you argument against you, by giving example of small bands that playing music on high level that didn't get support of rec. comp. and what didn't have self-promoting skills, or low-budget prod. team that cannot made another movie because to many people download their previous work, and so, but that's not the point. Yes, that is true that big fishes calculating/adding stealing as costs, but does it justify stealing anyone work at all?

@ Marky Mark: i do understand you arguments, if fact i did that by myself, but again, i bought CD's of album i already had on cassettes, same as i don't see problem with watching streamed series/shows for what i already paid my cable TV provider in subscription.
i'm not saying that we have to stick to texts of legal acts word-to-word, but to find deeper to recreate more than only simple textual meaning of law.

My fourpence worth :-

There are many unknown bands and the only way they get known is by people copying their music either from download sites or Youtube (didn't Justin Beiber start this way?)

If someone really really likes the band then they will buy the legit product anyway

A lot of the stuff people download is not commercially available

The money making emphasis has shifted from the recorded product, to the tour and all it's merch. Many albums are just churned out to promote the tour

The cost of a full price CD is too much

markfiend wrote:If the MPAA / RIAA / etc. got off their arses and provided ways for us, the consumer, to download their content easily and legally, for a fee, just imagine how much money they could make.

Um, iTunes or, as you say yourself, Amazon, HMV etc etc.

markfiend wrote:Instead, the industry pulls a King Canute, and say "Nobody can download our stuff! Not nobody, not nohow!" F*ck 'em.

But they're not saying that, are they? However heavy handed, they're just trying to take control of how their property is downloaded. As Quiffy says:

Quiff Boy wrote:in short, i have no idea what the answer is, but i accept that megaupload et al where treading on very dodgy ground, and whilst i'm saddened and inconvenienced by their removal, i'm happy to hold my hands up and say "ahh, damn! you got me!" - i'm not going to whine about it being taken away.

i'm not going to whine about it being taken away.

seconded....since I got my premium acc for another service

All in all we probably know what's technical/legally right or wrong but we also have our tresholds to care or not to care about the rules. It's not a new game and it was up and running before megaupload/torrent/whatever.. Back then it based on a "I know a guy who knows a guy who has a CD-Writer" basis, and don't forget the double-tape-deck era...

we made this whole agreement (ACTA) to the Net, forgetting about intlectual property (patent law,) forgetting that electronic devices, pharmaceutic, engeeniring is lot more useful than entertainment coming from filums, muzaks or TV shows and that it takes/needs much more real work to come to conclusions/effects. just to mention.

stufarq wrote:

markfiend wrote:If the MPAA / RIAA / etc. got off their arses and provided ways for us, the consumer, to download their content easily and legally, for a fee, just imagine how much money they could make.

Um, iTunes or, as you say yourself, Amazon, HMV etc etc.

Oops, yes, I meant Hollywood; the Music industry has indeed (finally) seen sense.

markfiend wrote: Oops, yes, I meant Hollywood; the Music industry has indeed (finally) seen sense.

Not in every case.
Not wanting to appear an audio snob, but I have spent a lot of time, money & effort to build a hifi that delivers a sound I am smitten with. However, much of the purchasable, downloadable music content is still low bit rate mp3 or those goshawful aac files.
I thank the maker for sites like Band Camp, where I am able to purchase (or at least get the option to) lossless audio from artists that I feel are more deserving of an outing on a proper home hifi, than just an mp3 player or computer with an iffy sound card.
The music industry has made progress, but not enough IMHO.

Maybe I'm just old fashioned.

Good point.

Pista wrote:

markfiend wrote: Oops, yes, I meant Hollywood; the Music industry has indeed (finally) seen sense.

Not in every case.
Not wanting to appear an audio snob, but I have spent a lot of time, money & effort to build a hifi that delivers a sound I am smitten with. However, much of the purchasable, downloadable music content is still low bit rate mp3 or those goshawful aac files.
I thank the maker for sites like Band Camp, where I am able to purchase (or at least get the option to) lossless audio from artists that I feel are more deserving of an outing on a proper home hifi, than just an mp3 player or computer with an iffy sound card.
The music industry has made progress, but not enough IMHO.

Maybe I'm just old fashioned.

So in the other words you're not for digital stuff and you prefer to buy non-zero-one formats like CD or vinyls, and if you download you pay for that first, so whole ACTA thingy is not gonna do harm for you, because you don't share illegal stuff. .
I do understand whole mess about ACTA- some provisions are a bit to unclear and allows to do a lot to protect copyright by legitimate rightholders (companies), only where is shadow of guilty. But, again, don't forget that not every provisons from this agreement "party shall provide", some of the "party may provide", so it's up to your government to do that. In the other words: if you want to do something do when they gonna implement provisions of this agreement.

I'm here also old fashioned, even that i dun't have proper audio system.

So as I understand well .......

When the ACTA law is accepted by the members of the EU and other countries (signing in Tokyo at February 29th, 2012) I am forced to close down my website www.mydominionnl.com, because a large part of my site is based on contents of the world wide web ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlFyoEKV0dE

Quiff Boy wrote: so, more importantly, where can i download all those obscure 80s indie & alternative vinyl-to-mp3 transfers that aren't available on cd now?

Is there anything that is not available on some online blog?

When we first got broadband at home, one of the first sites that I used was Soulseek & within about three months I'd run out of things that I wanted to dowload! From Ghost Dance demos to Skellies b-sides, released on vinyl only.........even all 3 Peel sessions from mid 80s indie nobodies The Janitors (a band that my brother used to follow up & down the country)

http://cliffrichardsneck.blogspot.com/s ... e+janitors

The last one confirmed that EVERYTHING is out there if you look for it. Illegal downloads is a genie that ain't going back into the bottle.