Sony Demands 150K Per Song From Customer.
- Thread starter TedShatner10
- Start date
You really don't want to bait me on this. And I wasn't talking about the former. One implies the other, and one can stand alone.
--Ted
Ignore him he is just on his high horse.
Guys, let's cut through the bullshit. The Sony lawyer doesn't give two shits about this. All he cares is about the crazy legal fees he is racking up. I bet he goes home and fires up his torrents just like everybody else.
Youtube actually does pay royalties. They don't catch every song but they catch a lot of them, and have to pay so much every time the video is played (I think it's a fraction of a penny). If they come across a video where the music is not authorized, they remove the audio track.
If the entire video is something they aren't authorized to play, the whole thing is removed.
I'm trying to figure out if this is an awesome movie tagline, or a really bad fortune cookie fortune!
TGTheodore's rantings seem to be based more on ideology than actual pragmatism.
In your eye?
You realise your personal opinion has absolutely nothing to do with whether something is subject to copyright I hope. Copyright holders are not under any obligation to provide you with legitimate releases, and their failure to do so has no bearing on the copyright status of their works.
As to the matter at hand, if we are to believe that downloading songs of the internet is the same as walking into a shop and stealing a CD, then the penalties for doing so should be similar.
The situation will never be dealt with reasonably as long as we have loons on one side declaring it to be their right to download music without paying for it, and loons on the other demanding huge fines and jail time for what amounts to petty theft.
^^^
The Dude said:
This isn't anything new. It's just the way things are. Many of you would be too young to remember what happened to usher in the "digital" age of music, interestingly Sony kind of brought this on themselves.
Whe the CD was originaly introduced, it wasn't embraced by most folks. Most folks had turntables, and bought music on vinyl records, which could be had for about $6.00-$7.00 for most titles. The average cost of a compact disk was $15.00-$20.00, and the players were very expensive. We were told that costs would come down when mass production kicked in (that never happened). In addition, there were many people (myself included) who believed that digital music didn't sound as good. I was more than happy to keep buying records, and records were still being made en masse.
Then, something fun happened. Sony, the inventor (along with Philips) of the CD and digital technology BOUGHT the largent manufacturer of records, Columbia and then over several years quit pressing records. With records disappearing from the shelves, CD's became the ONLY option. Within a very short time CDs were the only medium available. The price never came down, and many titles were just never again available.
Sony is reaping the result of their own arrogance. They can't hold music hostage, just us, and they will as long as we let them.
I am a professional musician, and educator, and as such I do not advocate file sharing, but as long as there is no other avenue, (in the case of recordings which the record labels "own" but refuse to release, or make available) I will do whatever I need to to find ways to bring these recordings to a new generation.
I do find it interesting that I am now seeing vinyl records show up at Best Buy, being touted as the high-end in music. As I told someone the other day, my stubborness has finally paid off. I still have over 1,000 LP's and a turntable and anolog reciever. I have always believed it sounded better than digital, and I feel a little vindicated! Off topic, but fun nonetheless!
Whe the CD was originaly introduced, it wasn't embraced by most folks. Most folks had turntables, and bought music on vinyl records, which could be had for about $6.00-$7.00 for most titles. The average cost of a compact disk was $15.00-$20.00, and the players were very expensive. We were told that costs would come down when mass production kicked in (that never happened). In addition, there were many people (myself included) who believed that digital music didn't sound as good. I was more than happy to keep buying records, and records were still being made en masse.
Then, something fun happened. Sony, the inventor (along with Philips) of the CD and digital technology BOUGHT the largent manufacturer of records, Columbia and then over several years quit pressing records. With records disappearing from the shelves, CD's became the ONLY option. Within a very short time CDs were the only medium available. The price never came down, and many titles were just never again available.
Sony is reaping the result of their own arrogance. They can't hold music hostage, just us, and they will as long as we let them.
I am a professional musician, and educator, and as such I do not advocate file sharing, but as long as there is no other avenue, (in the case of recordings which the record labels "own" but refuse to release, or make available) I will do whatever I need to to find ways to bring these recordings to a new generation.
I do find it interesting that I am now seeing vinyl records show up at Best Buy, being touted as the high-end in music. As I told someone the other day, my stubborness has finally paid off. I still have over 1,000 LP's and a turntable and anolog reciever. I have always believed it sounded better than digital, and I feel a little vindicated! Off topic, but fun nonetheless!
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It's really sad that our copyright law hasn't caught up to modern technology, $750-$150,000 far too high of a fine for individuals who violate copyright, it's obviously designed for large scale operations that actually make a lot of money from selling bootlegs.
I can guarantee you that the vast majority of people who use the internet don't know what an IP address is, and don't know it can be used to track them like a physical address.Who is actually stupid enough to get busted for filesharing? When you use a service that advertises your IP and is known to have feds watching it, you're asking for trouble. Though most of my music is ripped from legit CDs (mostly because most idiots who upload stuff don't know how to make good rips and don't bother uploading FLACs, just horrible MP3s), I've done a bit of downloading in the past. with no consequence. Just stick to private trackers, or even better, private, secure, password protected webservers run by generous friends with large playlists and fast upstream
What's the verdict on uTorrent? Is it safe?
If I was an artist, I would gravitate away from Sony at this time. This isn't Lars Ullrich vs. Napster anymore. Torrents and downloading have become a fact of life. People all over the world are doing it. I ask what is the point of buying a CD for $20 from Wal-Mart for two tracks?
Why can't groups be like Radiohead with their album "In Rainbows"?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/markets/2816893/Radiohead-challenges-labels-with-free-album.html
For the record, I buy CD's of bands who are struggling to get going, like ones from the frequent "Battle of the Bands" I attend. But explain to me why artists like Hannah Montana or Metallica or anyone huge with money dripping out of their ears, needs more cash. Especially when they charge an arm and a leg for a ticket to a show.
Wake up record labels! Your days of greed are over!
If I was an artist, I would gravitate away from Sony at this time. This isn't Lars Ullrich vs. Napster anymore. Torrents and downloading have become a fact of life. People all over the world are doing it. I ask what is the point of buying a CD for $20 from Wal-Mart for two tracks?
Why can't groups be like Radiohead with their album "In Rainbows"?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/markets/2816893/Radiohead-challenges-labels-with-free-album.html
For the record, I buy CD's of bands who are struggling to get going, like ones from the frequent "Battle of the Bands" I attend. But explain to me why artists like Hannah Montana or Metallica or anyone huge with money dripping out of their ears, needs more cash. Especially when they charge an arm and a leg for a ticket to a show.
Wake up record labels! Your days of greed are over!
It is extremely easy to track someone's internet activity, the end.
Sony are a big corporation and their purpose is to make a tremendous amount of money, but they employ tens of thousands of people, and the livelihoods of those people depend on record sales.
Just because lots of people do something does not make it right.
You can buy individual tracks for reasonable money on dozens of sites now, no need to buy a CD for two songs.
Because they cant afford to, Radiohead are all millionaires because of selling millions of albums through uber-label EMI, they can afford to give an album away, even a really good one.
Good for you -but if you buy such tracks why bother with major labels at all, U2's last album was shit, and if its not worth buying its not worth stealing!
They probably dont need it, but then that is not your or my judgement to make, and it is certainly not a moral justification for violating their legal rights or petty theft.
The major labels are of course greedy and persuing an outdated business model, but it really is not an excuse for illegal downloading.
I just read a blog by Moby about a similar situation and I'll just post it here:
Nowadays I buy music by local bands who really need the money and indie bands who deserve it. I have enough licensed merch from my favorite bigger acts, (tees, posters, DVDs, concerts) so I don't give a damn what people think of my downloading because I contribute monetarily to these artists. Record companies are greedy and are run by the same people who run companies that make printers and washing machines. What the hell do they know about the entertainment industry or what it takes to develop a great transcendent musical act?
He's certainly not the first recording artist that I've heard making similar statements. I download a lot of music because some is not easily found in my backwater market and some is just out of print. I used to buy dozens and dozens of CDs a year when I was a teenager and I've calculated that my CD, tape, and vinyl collection is worth at least $6,000 not accounting for inflation.
Nowadays I buy music by local bands who really need the money and indie bands who deserve it. I have enough licensed merch from my favorite bigger acts, (tees, posters, DVDs, concerts) so I don't give a damn what people think of my downloading because I contribute monetarily to these artists. Record companies are greedy and are run by the same people who run companies that make printers and washing machines. What the hell do they know about the entertainment industry or what it takes to develop a great transcendent musical act?
Their aggressive and consistent contempt for the consumer base has crippled them dearly across the board: in the electronics hardware market alone they're losing ground against Lucky Goldstar, Apple, and Panasonic, while coming a distant third in video gaming behind Microsoft and Nintendo (both companies no angels themselves).
As long as you use a service that advertises your IP address to a whole bunch of people, any of whom could be law enforcement, you aren't safe. Using any form of P2P (including BitTorrent) to download your movies and songs is inherently risky. I'm sure there's plenty of law enforcement types with accounts on private trackers too (your average semi-private invite-only trackers at least).
If you want to be safe, don't use P2P. However, most people never get caught, even using public trackers, but just keep in mind that anybody, including law enforcement, can get your IP with minimal effort. If you really want to be safe, just stick to leeching off of friends with fast upstreams, lots of music/movies and who don't mind setting up a webserver/ftp/whatever for you
Damn straight. Screw the RIAA. The artists should come first.
Oh, by the way - ASCAP is now going after ringtones (at least, to get more money from 'em).
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Already ringtones are more expensive than a full-length song-and pay a higher royalty to the artist than a normal
What more do these people want at this rate the music company's will have no money left because the lawyers have got it all.
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