$14

[To_The_Top]

According to KIRO 710 the CD refund money will be mailed Friday.

 

CHECKS IN THE MAIL

 

The state Attorney General's Office says checks go in the mail tomorrow for millions of consumers who filed claims in a C-D price-fixing case. More than 213-thousand state residents will receive restitution checks for 14 dollars ($13.86) each. The money comes from music companies and retailers who illegally prevented discounting.

[klenke]

I signed up for that. Bonus! I remember clueing in a bunch of you yahoos over email concerning this. For those that took the time to fill out the online form, you've just bought a half-rack of (good) beer for yourselves. For those that didn't, well... Ha hu!

[HerbertWest]

And why, exactly, should I not utilize P2P file sharing networks to exchange music over the Internet, when I can go and get raped in the ass at a music store, by money hungry music industrialists?

[klenke]

Well, Herbert, you make a valid point. Music truly is overpriced. It was a precedent set long ago (over 12 years ago for CDs) that the consumer was never able to control (this $14 notwithstanding).

 

But...

Regardless of the low percentage of profits the record companies give to their artists, you, the music pirater (which is essentially what you are when you swap files with your chums for free) is doing the artist even worse.

 

The artists must make a living. By pirating their music, you are ripping them off as much or more so than the record company. The record companies can absorb the loss in revenue more than the artists can. A musician is the same as a painter or sculptor. All three of these have been ripped off from their (copy)rights due to illegal copies.

 

There is simply no moral argument for stealing (copying) someone else's intellectual property JUST BECAUSE the technology is there to do so. Moral judgement supercedes and is not beholden to technology, but technology ought to be beholden to moral judgement. In today's blame everyone else society, I'm not surprised by the things I see everyday.

 

What musicians need to do is divorce themselves from record companies like Geffan, Atlantic, EMI, etc. and embrace (i.e., make the initial sacrifice of less exposure) companies like Discipline Global Mobile who give all the copyrights and power to the artists. DGM is really only a conduit for the artists. Geffan, etc. are not conduits, they are valves that stifle flow.

 

____________________________

 

Something sort of related that I read the other day:

In America, the average CEO makes 500 times the yearly salary of the average worker in CEO's compay. This is up from 40 times in 1980. In Japan right now, the CEO salary multiplier is like 10 times (could be wrong on this value). The article further stated that there's no way to control this out-of-control situation. (It's a lot like the baseball salary sky rocket problem). It's a free country and boards of directors can pay their executives as they see fit. The problem (solution to it) lies with the boards. They currently lack the balls to fix the problem. I'm not surprised, for they are all cronies to that system. And you wonder why they have to ship jobs overseas, and cut workforce, and innovate as rapidly as they do to "keep up."

 

[Off_White]

Plenty of label alternatives out there that deal nicely with their acts:

 

Kill Rock Stars

YoYo Recordings

Chainsaw Records

K Records

Majnun Records

Punk in my Vitamins

Slide the Needle

Strange Attractors Audio House

 

and that's just in Olympia...

Of course, you'll never play arenas, and only a handful of bands will ever quit their day jobs. Kind of like trying to make your living from climbing.

 

 

[Off_White]

Post deleted by Off_White

[Thrill]

I disagree.. that the artist is so badly wounded by file sharing.. in fact I can name many occasions where burning a disk for a friend turned them into a fan who now purchases the artists complete works as well as goes to see their shows…

Show me exactly how bad Madonna is hurting when someone file shares?

[cracked]

 

I disagree.. that the artist is so badly wounded by file sharing.. in fact I can name many occasions where burning a disk for a friend turned them into a fan who now purchases the artists complete works as well as goes to see their shows…

Show me exactly how bad Madonna is hurting when someone file shares?

I've downloaded some music. I like most of it. Not enough to pay 15 bucks for a CD. When the sharing program that I used was pulled, I quit listening to music.

 

I agree with the above sentiments. Every time you burn a CD you steal a buck or two from the artist. They might deserve more, but you're still stealing from them.

[Off_White]

So figure this: Since Napster got shut down, I buy less music. It used to be a great thing to search for something relatively obscure, then browse the libraries of people who came up in the search. The theory was that if they found that band interesting, I might find that the other bands they listen to interesting. I found a bunch of things I'd otherwise never have come in contact with that way, and it very much enriched my muscial life and spurred any number of purchases. Granted, I'm mostly interested in the more obscure and indie music worlds, so Janet Jackson or Limp Bizket never lost a dollar to me, but exploring and tunneling after new music is a much slower process for me these days. To that end, I must say that Fern and E-Rock turned me on to some great stuff, so CC.Com plays it's part in my music universe.

[klenke]

Off, Thrill: I refer you to my previous statement...

 

There is simply no moral argument for stealing (copying) someone else's intellectual property JUST BECAUSE the technology is there to do so. Moral judgement supercedes and is not beholden to technology, but technology ought to be beholden to moral judgement. In today's blame everyone else society, I'm not surprised by the things I see everyday.

 

Albeit, I agree with Thrill on his second point that burning a CD of yours for someone else may get them into the music. I did this just this last week for a friend myself. This is the first time I've done it. I essentially boiled down 10 albums from this artist into 3 personal "Best Of" CDs for her to listen to. If she then embraces his music and wants to BUY it, then I am doing the artist a favor. But this is only true if she buys the music instead of pirating it, which is highly unlikely for the particular music I sent her, so I'm not worried.

 

Madonna would be an example of a large record company, in that she can absorb the cost reductions and still carry on as she was (to the degree that multi-millionaires can do so). So she is not a good example toward your argument. It is the little bands. The ones that make great music but never strike it big that suffer from file sharing. It's easy to cite the one big kahuna like Madonna and try to justify the actions of stealing when really there are 50 times as many small bands that are the real losers here (it's like stealing from J.C. Pennies vs. some mom & pop store). All this works well for the Madonnas and Britneys of the industry, for it means the masses below them are in less danger of overtaking them.

[Superman]

Off, Thrill: I refer you to my previous statement...

 

There is simply no moral argument for stealing (copying) someone else's intellectual property JUST BECAUSE the technology is there to do so. Moral judgement supercedes and is not beholden to technology, but technology ought to be beholden to moral judgement.

 

I disagree. In fact, I know more than one artist who encourages mp3 file sharing. Some major artists have publicly stated that file sharing is good advertising and don't have a problem with it. I personally don't think morals has anything to do with mp3 file sharing other than the fact that it's immoral for record companies to be charging what they charge for an album.

[scott_harpell]

I download shit adn then if i like it, I buy it on vinyl. I dont see the big deal. I would never buy a $25-60 pice of plastic if i have never heard it before.