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Joe · 08-07-2003, 03:13 PM

After reading a well written editorial on Designtechnica this morning (Dougs picture makes him look like a Jr Lawyer or something so maybe thats why his Ed. is wrote the way it is

hehe), I decided to strike back with my own. While DM's viewpoint was well presented it missed one of the main facts of the industry... Assumptions that every download would have been a purchase.

In DM's editorial it is pointed out there are 3 classifications of "pirate". These would be 1. Geeks who download it for their own enjoyment - Loss of minor sales, and almost impossible to track. 2. People who duplicate media and sell it - Big problems with that. 3. Mass share folks ( like the MP3 monsters on Kazza, etc.. )

To me, the first 2 groups sound strangely like pot smokers and dealers... but that’s just me I guess. ( 3rd one doesn’t apply cause there aint no one just handing out mass amounts of pot for free)

the regulation aspect the RIAA is looking at is similar to the war on drugs… just a digital version.

The aspect of "loss" is something I always have trouble understanding as an argument. Just because I download an MP3 off a P2P network, or rip a friends CD, it doesn’t mean I am causing any loss. The question of "would I have bought it if MP3's weren’t available" is one that’s never asked. The answer MANY times is no. I downloaded it as a mater of sampling the full CD and if its real good and worth the money I will buy it right away (hence the fact I have 200 CD's on the shelf, with another one I just bought today). There’s no loss to the company for me listening to the product to see if its worth it. What about music stores that let you listen to a CD before buying it... are they pirates? they achieved some kind of gratification listening to the music... what if they don’t buy that CD... did they just rip off the artists?! **** no.

Now there is a difference between the people who download music to ensure they are buying something worth it, and someone who downloads it just because he wants the music for free. There’s a very gray line in all this that I believe will result in many geeks getting in trouble and in the long run cost the RIAA More money than anything MP3's could have hurt.

The placement of a monetary value on pleasure and enjoyment in someone’s life is just the most ****ed up thing there is in all this. Since the RIAA would like to say that because I listened to the music, it provided some gratification, and therefore it was a service they provided and I should pay them. But is that always the case? How often have you bought CD's just to get a CRAP disc that has 1 good song? Can you bill them back for mental anguish?

I myself just dumped now over 200 Audio CD's I own to MP3 and have amassed 20GB worth of MP3's. Over 2700 tracks in total. The fact that I OWN the Cd's I ripped makes it 100% legit due to the Fair Use Act, that was introduced back in the days of VHS tape and cassettes when the MPAA and RIAA were freaked about their pending demise ( or so they thought). What happened then? the motion picture industry and recording industry had the best 20 years in a row even with minor economic downturns.

Now in the biggest Economic downturn in quite a while, the RIAA blames the kids on the internet for the reasons they are loosing sales.... Well DUH. How about the fact disposable income has fallen, 20,000 people a week are laid off work. You think maybe some of the population who’s been hurt in the economic times maybe bought CD's now and then before and don’t now? Hmm you think so?

the law suits are just the biggest show of arrogance by the music industry thinking that they are WORTH it, and that their customers owe them something. How about making music that’s affordable, music tickets that are not taxed by ever middle man in the world, and how about making GOOD freaking music people WANT to buy.

This is all just backlash against the music industries steady price hikes, and overall evil business practices. I know in the back of my head at every CD purchase I am thinking about not buying it and looking for it on the web just to spite the RIAA. Just because the music industry as a whole wont evolve past the 1980's ( I think they are still trying to reason with the creation of cassette tapes). They wont embrace this new technology today, and would rather just outcast it as simply a method made for piracy.

If record labels let me download CD quality MP3's instead of driving to a store, I would be all over it ( at a reduced price of course.) Just as with the war on drugs, the RIAA believes that restriction and patrolling of MP3’s is a solution, where many industry people favor the "give the people what they obviously want" and people after a short while will find the MP3’s more a standard thing they buy vs a think they sneak around to download. (Very similar to the whole “legalize it” campaigns for narcotics.)

Anti-Copy protection on Digital Media is absolutely stupid. Look at DVD's, that 40 bit encryption was bypassed no more than 1.5 years since its public rollout. If you make an encryption in 2003, you think it wont be broke by 2005?. Also I believe it defeats the Fair Use act, by locking in someone to use only the media and method the RIAA prescribes. If the argument is "quality", I can’t see that either. Just because technology has legitimately grown to the point a audio fiend can enjoy music at excellent qualities on different medias and transfers as technology progresses into the future doesn’t make it bad. I mean how many of you have 8 tracks that are so dry rotted they snap the first time you insert them into a player? Who wants to be stuck with a rack of SACD's down the road with no viable conversion path off them to the next gen media?

This whole deal reeks... and I believe its all just to cover up for the fact the RIAA is run worse than Enron, and the fact the economic down turn hurt them WAY more than they want to let on about.

So now I am going to sit here, and enjoy my MP3's and other peoples MP3 as I find them. And if a band makes a CD that’s worth it and provides the satisfaction I am looking for in a good CD, I will buy it.. and more than likely rip it also.

So that’s my lil editorial on this ****ed up time in the music industry. As far as the MPAA goes, I don’t have too much of a comment, I buy DVD’s like they are going out of style, and can honestly say I have never downloaded a single movie. TV programs on the other hand I have done quite a bit with, and I have a REAL bitch with the folks at networks and such who claim that editing out commercials is theft. Wait… So you broadcast these signals over the air, and for free I happen to pick it up, and only parts of it are worth watching… So I am wrong to not look at the commercials? What if I go to take a piss during a commercial in CSI… am I stealing from CBS? Also lets look at reality here, if someone is recording an episode its something that will be archived for viewing later on… you think the promoters of the “SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY Monster Truck’O’Thon” this weekend will care if people don’t see their commercial 5 years from now? Or the dozens of dot com ad’s that the companies will be gone before you even get to watch the tape again? This again is just a smoke screen, for the fact the economy has taken the advertising industry and sent it down the shitter. So the networks can demand more money they need to make it LOOK like they care about devices like TIVO and etc…

I have many of the Tick Episodes (yeh that corny live action version that was on for a ¼ a season

hehe) in WMV format that I watch now and then… with no commercials… cause really I don’t give a damn if some reality show from 2 years ago was coming on next. I record tons of stuff off TV, edit it, and burn it to DVD for my personal archives. Unlike MP3’s which fair use says you CAN transfer media for personal use, editing out commercials seems to cross the line of… something… Its all very gray, and really they don’t care about me or my collection, they care about people who post that collection online, and let others download it all. But even at that the question of “loss” comes in. I mean they sent most of these programs for free over the air, just because someone else had the capability to record them and you didn’t doesn’t really mean there’s any loss on the part of the networks.

Well **** the RIAA, **** the Networks, and **** the MPAA for trying to attack the kids and adults that have made them who they are simply due to the fact they refuse to grow with technology and call the lawyers when it grows faster than them.

08-07-2003, 03:13 PM	#1
Joe The Pro/Life Support System Join Date: Dec 1999 Location: Denver, CO Posts: 4,041	My Lil MP3 Vs RIAA Editorial After reading a well written editorial on Designtechnica this morning (Dougs picture makes him look like a Jr Lawyer or something so maybe thats why his Ed. is wrote the way it is hehe), I decided to strike back with my own. While DM's viewpoint was well presented it missed one of the main facts of the industry... Assumptions that every download would have been a purchase. In DM's editorial it is pointed out there are 3 classifications of "pirate". These would be 1. Geeks who download it for their own enjoyment - Loss of minor sales, and almost impossible to track. 2. People who duplicate media and sell it - Big problems with that. 3. Mass share folks ( like the MP3 monsters on Kazza, etc.. ) To me, the first 2 groups sound strangely like pot smokers and dealers... but that’s just me I guess. ( 3rd one doesn’t apply cause there aint no one just handing out mass amounts of pot for free) the regulation aspect the RIAA is looking at is similar to the war on drugs… just a digital version. The aspect of "loss" is something I always have trouble understanding as an argument. Just because I download an MP3 off a P2P network, or rip a friends CD, it doesn’t mean I am causing any loss. The question of "would I have bought it if MP3's weren’t available" is one that’s never asked. The answer MANY times is no. I downloaded it as a mater of sampling the full CD and if its real good and worth the money I will buy it right away (hence the fact I have 200 CD's on the shelf, with another one I just bought today). There’s no loss to the company for me listening to the product to see if its worth it. What about music stores that let you listen to a CD before buying it... are they pirates? they achieved some kind of gratification listening to the music... what if they don’t buy that CD... did they just rip off the artists?! ** no. Now there is a difference between the people who download music to ensure they are buying something worth it, and someone who downloads it just because he wants the music for free. There’s a very gray line in all this that I believe will result in many geeks getting in trouble and in the long run cost the RIAA More money than anything MP3's could have hurt. The placement of a monetary value on pleasure and enjoyment in someone’s life is just the most ed up thing there is in all this. Since the RIAA would like to say that because I listened to the music, it provided some gratification, and therefore it was a service they provided and I should pay them. But is that always the case? How often have you bought CD's just to get a CRAP disc that has 1 good song? Can you bill them back for mental anguish? I myself just dumped now over 200 Audio CD's I own to MP3 and have amassed 20GB worth of MP3's. Over 2700 tracks in total. The fact that I OWN the Cd's I ripped makes it 100% legit due to the Fair Use Act, that was introduced back in the days of VHS tape and cassettes when the MPAA and RIAA were freaked about their pending demise ( or so they thought). What happened then? the motion picture industry and recording industry had the best 20 years in a row even with minor economic downturns. Now in the biggest Economic downturn in quite a while, the RIAA blames the kids on the internet for the reasons they are loosing sales.... Well DUH. How about the fact disposable income has fallen, 20,000 people a week are laid off work. You think maybe some of the population who’s been hurt in the economic times maybe bought CD's now and then before and don’t now? Hmm you think so? the law suits are just the biggest show of arrogance by the music industry thinking that they are WORTH it, and that their customers owe them something. How about making music that’s affordable, music tickets that are not taxed by ever middle man in the world, and how about making GOOD freaking music people WANT to buy. This is all just backlash against the music industries steady price hikes, and overall evil business practices. I know in the back of my head at every CD purchase I am thinking about not buying it and looking for it on the web just to spite the RIAA. Just because the music industry as a whole wont evolve past the 1980's ( I think they are still trying to reason with the creation of cassette tapes). They wont embrace this new technology today, and would rather just outcast it as simply a method made for piracy. If record labels let me download CD quality MP3's instead of driving to a store, I would be all over it ( at a reduced price of course.) Just as with the war on drugs, the RIAA believes that restriction and patrolling of MP3’s is a solution, where many industry people favor the "give the people what they obviously want" and people after a short while will find the MP3’s more a standard thing they buy vs a think they sneak around to download. (Very similar to the whole “legalize it” campaigns for narcotics.) Anti-Copy protection on Digital Media is absolutely stupid. Look at DVD's, that 40 bit encryption was bypassed no more than 1.5 years since its public rollout. If you make an encryption in 2003, you think it wont be broke by 2005?. Also I believe it defeats the Fair Use act, by locking in someone to use only the media and method the RIAA prescribes. If the argument is "quality", I can’t see that either. Just because technology has legitimately grown to the point a audio fiend can enjoy music at excellent qualities on different medias and transfers as technology progresses into the future doesn’t make it bad. I mean how many of you have 8 tracks that are so dry rotted they snap the first time you insert them into a player? Who wants to be stuck with a rack of SACD's down the road with no viable conversion path off them to the next gen media? This whole deal reeks... and I believe its all just to cover up for the fact the RIAA is run worse than Enron, and the fact the economic down turn hurt them WAY more than they want to let on about. So now I am going to sit here, and enjoy my MP3's and other peoples MP3 as I find them. And if a band makes a CD that’s worth it and provides the satisfaction I am looking for in a good CD, I will buy it.. and more than likely rip it also. So that’s my lil editorial on this ed up time in the music industry. As far as the MPAA goes, I don’t have too much of a comment, I buy DVD’s like they are going out of style, and can honestly say I have never downloaded a single movie. TV programs on the other hand I have done quite a bit with, and I have a REAL bitch with the folks at networks and such who claim that editing out commercials is theft. Wait… So you broadcast these signals over the air, and for free I happen to pick it up, and only parts of it are worth watching… So I am wrong to not look at the commercials? What if I go to take a piss during a commercial in CSI… am I stealing from CBS? Also lets look at reality here, if someone is recording an episode its something that will be archived for viewing later on… you think the promoters of the “SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY Monster Truck’O’Thon” this weekend will care if people don’t see their commercial 5 years from now? Or the dozens of dot com ad’s that the companies will be gone before you even get to watch the tape again? This again is just a smoke screen, for the fact the economy has taken the advertising industry and sent it down the shitter. So the networks can demand more money they need to make it LOOK like they care about devices like TIVO and etc… I have many of the Tick Episodes (yeh that corny live action version that was on for a ¼ a season hehe) in WMV format that I watch now and then… with no commercials… cause really I don’t give a damn if some reality show from 2 years ago was coming on next. I record tons of stuff off TV, edit it, and burn it to DVD for my personal archives. Unlike MP3’s which fair use says you CAN transfer media for personal use, editing out commercials seems to cross the line of… something… Its all very gray, and really they don’t care about me or my collection, they care about people who post that collection online, and let others download it all. But even at that the question of “loss” comes in. I mean they sent most of these programs for free over the air, just because someone else had the capability to record them and you didn’t doesn’t really mean there’s any loss on the part of the networks. Well the RIAA, the Networks, and the MPAA for trying to attack the kids and adults that have made them who they are simply due to the fact they refuse to grow with technology and call the lawyers when it grows faster than them. __________________ Joe** - I only take this hat off for one thing... ProCooling archive curator and dusty skeleton. Last edited by Joe; 08-08-2003 at 09:23 AM.