Miscellaneous > Intellectual Property & Law
Poll: Music Sharing or Stealing
billy_gates:
quote:Originally posted by Dei-Gratia:
A CD cost less than a penny to manufacture, and approximately $17.00 to purchase.
For one, file sharing would be less necessary if CD's were fairly priced. Aside from that, a musician's main income is derived from concerts and publicity. CD's are only a small portion of an artist's paycheck (Their purpose is almost entirely promotional).
Musicians that are discovered through file-sharing networks have a greater potential to earn a fatter paycheck, because more people are likely to attend their concert.
Your average everyday Joe is not the only one benefiting from file-sharing.
--- End quote ---
If this is so why don't most musicicans allow content to be downloaded freely. I mean, if you could make more money doing something, wouldn't you let people do it, so you could make more money. The lack of a large group of people doing this would mean that your hypothesis is incorrect.
Faust:
quote:That's a poor excuse often used for any CD medium. (Video Games, Movies, Software)
You have to also pay a part of the music production, advertising, packaging, etc. etc...
That, and major retailers sell most CD's for $10-$14
--- End quote ---
Bullshit. CD's from "Nothing records" (Nine Inch Nails/Marilyn Manson) are released at prices _far_ below the $34.95 AUS charged for most CD's I get. My local basement style music store sells these CD's for $25 each as opposed to the $35 for other labels. And I have been told by the manager that they still make MORE profit on these CD's than they do on the $35 ones, due to the fact that they are priced reasonably. These CD's have had the hell advertised out of them, they are packaged like all other CD's and produced to greater quality - they actually have lyrics printed in the front! My local chain store of course marked Marilyn Mansons new CD up to $35 to "mantain price parity."
And the copying of music is not stealing - it is by definition the copying of music. It can be said to be _analogous_ to stealing in that the artist makes no profit, but it can never _be_ stealing. From now on I am only buying CD's from record labels that actually treat their customers well (eg Artemis / Nothing) and everything else will be copied. And of course, I post money to the artist - far more than they would receive if I bought the CD. The only person that gets shafted is the record company. Considering that all the record companies do is advertise / produce CD's, and that both of these roles can now be performed by the internet/file sharing and cd burning respectively why do we need record companies anymore? Either they start pricing CD's reasonably or I say we remove their un-necessary arses.
Faust:
If CD's are sold at "correct" prices then why do record companies still relase them at drastically lower prices in other countries? Wouldnt they make a loss if they were selling for less than they were "worth?" :eek:
NM:
I can copy a CD and give it to my friends. Thats legal here in teh US. So why can't I give my friend a mp3. The grey area is the exact status of people you don't know. BTW, I have bought more Cds in the post-Napster days than in teh pre-Napster days simply because I can demo the whole CD. Whould you buy a DVD without watching the movie once? (Yeah, you'd pay a little, but $2 to Blockbuster is not $18 to Sony Music).
Stryker:
If the artist and the employees at the record company can afford to support themselves and their families, then what the fuck does it matter? If everyone involved in the production only got $900 a month then I'd have a problem. but when they get into the tens and hundreds of thousands (possible millions), i dont see what the harm is. In my opinion, nobody really needs more than $5,000 a month. (unless you have a huge family) If you are demanding to be rich, i say fuck you and you deserve to have your work "stolen".
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