Are We Jsut A Bunch Of Theives?

The problem I have with the RIAA is that most people, especially now, don't have the money to go out and by a $30 dollar CD. I can see it from both points of view. The record industry wants to make money off cd's but they cant because people aren't buying them. People aren't buying them because they cost too dam much. So the people who cant buy them resort to other means. In response the recording industry starts handing out supenas to people who mostly cant aford to buy the CD's in the first place.

Lets look at it this way. the RIAA had the same issue with the CD burner back in the mid and late 90's, man i talk about that like it was a really long time ago, but look where it got them. You practically can't even buy a computer now a days without some sort of a CD or DVD burner already installed. The same goes for P2P sharing. It's like a hydra you cut off one head and two more will take its place. The only way to defeat a hydra is to destroy its heart. In this case the Hydra has many hearts. #1 the media that can be shared must be eliminated IE stop recording stuff or 2 shut down the internet completely (aint gonna happen).

The RIAA is never gonna recover from the losses of cd sales, but the thing that is gonna hurt them the most are court and legal fee's. They are probably spending more now on legal fee's than they have lost on cd sales. They have issued supena's to 64 people at last count and there are aproximately 2 - 5 million users on Kazaa alone. The legal fee's for trying to get all of these people will be horrendous.

Are we all thieves? To some extent yes. My solution to the problem is simple however. If free peer to peer gets shut down i say we all boycott cd's completely as well as other merchandise created under the eye of the RIAA and just listen to the radio. However, a more realistic solution is that the RIAA stop depending so much on cd sales and start depending more on other merchandise and the idea of the CONCERT to earn money. Stop producing so many cd's and you wont suffer the loss as much. The fact is that in order for the song to get on P2P networks, some one somewhere down the line has to buy the

Lastly I would like to say that once a cd has been paid for by the consumer, all rights as to what happens to that cd recording or otherwise reverts to the consumer. What the copyright says is that the plastic that makes up the cd and it case blong to the consumer but what ever is on that cd does not. I find no problem with file sharing so long as the credit is given to the original artist. That is what the original idea behind a copyright and patent was. It was created to make sure that no one claimed work they did not do as their own.

I agree with the above post By adster, BOYCOTT, BOYCOTT, BOYCOTT Some one wants to see me out on the street protesting then that's what i'll do but it wont accomplish as much as just not buying the cd's.

Of course a boycott will work.

But the sad thing is we wouldn't be just boycotting the CDs to prove they are too expensive, we would be getting the music from Kazaa and in effect we wouldn't need to buy the CDs to listen to the music.

Maybe you don't see it that way, but i bet RIAA will. in fact isn't that already happening?

How many CDs do filesharers buy? how many CDs do non-filesharers buy?
But how many filesharers are boycotting?

nothing compares to owning the real deal, if prices were to come down to sensible level then i would buy more cd's period B)
there are too many corporate greedheads on the planet for this to become reality i am afraid.
therefore there will always be file sharing unless they close the net :lol:

I agree.
But isn't all of us greedheads? If i were to give you $50 for nothing, you wouldn't say no.

Some good and points there, Will_518.

I must reply to it though, in the interest of healthy debate :)

Is it immoral to break the law? not necessarily I would say. Just because a bunch of elected representatives say you cannot do something, doesn't make that activity immoral.

for example if for no reason, it was made illegal to wear red socks, inside your own house, it would not be immoral to do so, as you are not hurting anyone.


So even millions of downloads, if they are only by people who were not purchasing the thing anyway, in real terms, does not effect the person who made the song.

of course if they download instead of buying it (as opposed to just downloading it when they wouldn't have bought it), then this does cause loss to the artists

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This is totally against what i thought the American free market economy and the whole capitalist society stood for.

What is America all about? Why is it called the land of opportunnity? isn't it because every men have to work hard to earn their money? The harder they work (+ some luck), the more they earn

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Now this one, Just had to comment on..
well i'm not American, im actually Australian..just thought i'd point that out first.

I am against the 'free market economy', and what capitalist society stands for. Now I can just hear everyone screaming 'jim1013's a freaking communist', however i am not a communist. Communism has been demonised over there (in the US) to the extent where people freely use the word, without really understanding what it is.. I'm lead to believe that anyone who does not support absolute captialism is often called this.

I guess this has progressed to more of a political discussion now.. but oh well!

(absolute capitalism and communism are both 'extremes' I believe neither work. I would consider something somewhere 'in the middle' to be better. Economically I believe in a mixed economy (Australia's economy is a mixed economy to some extent). Certainly Australia hasn't gone as far down the free market, absolute capitalism line as the US has (and one could argue even the US is not absolute capitalism either - but it is closer to it)

The harder someone works the more they earn? While this is sometimes true, there are many times when it is not. Consider Billy and Johnny.

Billy's parents (who happen to be fairly well off) pay for Billy's expensive education, and as a result Billy lands a nice comfortable, well paid job, which he can do because he has a good education.

Johnny's parents however, are unemployed (or only able to find work some of the time). they can barely pay the electricity bill, let alone even dream of providing the opportunity of a good education for Johnny. As a result, Johnny ends up with little education, and has to work in boring, low-paid (possibly manual labor) type jobs.

Johnny may well work extremely hard, possibly 7 days a week, and struggle to pay the bills. while Billy might work a 5 days week, and have a fairly good income.

It's not Johnny's fault that he was born to parents who couldn't provide for him, and he may well have worked harder through his whole life than Billy.
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thats one hypothetical example, but there is no doubt that similar situations occur very often.
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I am not saying that your comment about working harder and earning more is always untrue, I'm pointing out that, at the very least it is often not true.

Any system which alows the example above to occur, is immoral.


but enough of this heavy political discussion.. time for something more fun.

"When you pirate Mp3's, you're downloading Communism"
Anyone ever seen that thing? i think its a poster from http://www.modernhumorist.com/
I doubt the writer even knows what communism really is. But everytime i see it, it cracks me up :lol:

check it out, im sure you'll have a laugh

oh.. this post seems to sum up the copywrite/theft argument quite well..

Myth number 4: under http://www.klboard.ath.cx/index.php?showtopic=76104

ya we are but i don care, if they dont want us to download it they shouldnt uh... ya we are

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Originally posted by Will_518@22 October 2003 - 09:42
How many CDs do filesharers buy? how many CDs do non-filesharers buy?

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You opened up the WRONG can'o worms by saying that...
because the evidence I've seen so far is file sharing increases CD sales in many cases.

Unheard-of bands or very old bands with CDs only available special-order are getting sales FAR out of proportion to what they were before something called NAPSTER ever appeared.

Yep definatly agree on that allowing free downloads of Music is a method of endulging fans, doing the opposite does not do bands any good for example hear what happend to Maddona American life they posted fake tracks with her saying "what the fuck do you think you are doing" and of course her site is hacked ect. This has happend on countless occaisons when bands abuse there fans.

BTW: does anyone know Napster are coming back?