how much do you 'owe' the RIAA?

[j2x]

Originally Posted by yoav

it's an arbitrarily large amount

goodness, you had much more time to dedicate to addressing many points than I do. Thank you for being a reasonable voice in this polarizing debate.

i especially liked the cartoon at the end.

[Cretaceous Bob]

Originally Posted by yoav

i'm a thief but defined by who? my country, legal system, etc. do not consider me a thief and because i'm within it's jurisdiction i am not a thief.

thievery is itself a concept, one of ownership, if tomorrow the government decided air had value, then me breathing the air in your house without your explicit permission would be considered theft.

Theft is taking something that you do not own.

You do not own the music you are taking.

You are a thief.

If you don't think music has ownership, you hate art.

Originally Posted by yoav

why can't you make your point without directing personal insults, it's very juvenile. this thread is not about thievery.

And yet the news article is about a thief.

Originally Posted by yoav

the vast majority of music pirates(studies have been done) still pay for the same amount of music they did previously. they still pay for music, they still go to shows, they still buy merchandise, they still support artists and they do it because they like music. they actually do it more now because due to piracy they are exposed to more music at a faster rate than listening to the radio and a wider span than watching the same 5 videos on mtv cycle redundantly because they too get a cut from the product placement.

1) That exposure rate is NOT AT ALL tied to illegal downloads; it is increased exposure that is the result of new media. If illegal downloading was eliminated, that exposure would not go away.

2) Since the only positive quality to theft you could offer is not specific to illegal downloading, and is endemic to the internet as a whole, there need only be but one person who did not buy something they would have otherwise bought. We all know this has happened. Thus, illegal downloading has a negative effect.

Originally Posted by yoav

i started this thread to show the riaa(whether or not they read this) that their scare tactics and manipulation of the legal system is not effective.

You sure do claim to have a lot of balls for someone who cannot be affected by their bravado.

Originally Posted by yoav

if you make a digital copy, you are a criminal under US law, it doesn't matter what the library says, what your morals are or that you didn't know, if the riaa finds out and the library is issued a subpoena for you information and what content you made digital copies of they can and will sue you for up to $150,000 per item. when bob shouts, he's shouting at you as much as me. the library is not allowed to make copies either, your library is promoting thievery and bob will go swear at them now.

Even though I've already made it clear that I'm defending the spirit of the law and not the letter of it, you choose to try to insist that I think otherwise. You cannot build a sturdy house with lies.

Originally Posted by yoav

as far as us disagreeing, i don't think it's true, we both think it should be legal to copy a song you purchase onto your ipod for convenience. i don't think either of us likes being called a criminal or the idea of being sued obscene amounts of money for doing nothing wrong.

Yes, copying a purchased song onto an iPod should be legal.

But that's not what this woman from the article did, is it? And it's not what you do, is it?

In the library thing she shouldn't be considered a criminal, whereas you still should be. Don't try to foster solidarity with people who understand that you aren't entitled to everything.

Originally Posted by yoav

the porn thread is very illegal, katg are not responsible as everyone who joins the forums agrees to a contract that they are not liable for what's posted here. the uploaders are all criminals, and anyone who's been there is supporting crime. sexy sexy crime. funny that bob doesn't yell in the porn thread more. i guess he's just a loud obnoxious hypocrite.

Porn thieves haven't adopted this ridiculous notion of fighting The Man. If they did, I'd be yelling at them.

Uploaders are all criminals, and anyone who's been in there is supporting crime.

I don't yell in the porn thread simply because I don't go into the porn thread.

[Cretaceous Bob]

Originally Posted by yoav

also bob keeps saying no thieves produce any content. that's not true and proof if anyone was unclear of the kind of hollow statements he's been making throughout.

What do you produce, yoav?

If you made shit, I think you'd've said by now.

[Cretaceous Bob]

Originally Posted by j2x

Thank you for being a reasonable voice in this polarizing debate.

A reasonable voice is someone who steals something someone put effort and time and money into making?

Fuck reasonable voices, then.

I hate me a thief. If that makes me a fucking radical, so be it.

[j2x]

isn't there a way to ignore certain user's forum posts? I went into the User CP but didn't see anything there...

[Cretaceous Bob]

Aren't you a pussy.

Bob's such an asshole for saying people should pay for things if things have a price tag on them.

[ThisIsMyUserName]

Originally Posted by Cretaceous Bob

Aren't you a pussy.

Bob's such an asshole for saying people should pay for things if things have a price tag on them.

Just because it has a price tag? You must have had some kind of personal trauma where someone took something you "put a price tag on".
What if someone steals something and then puts a price tag on it and resells it to you? Companies you support have done this.
What if the original creator of something says "I want to give this away for free", but a 3rd party won't let them? Or copies their idea and sells it anyway? I feel I now have the right to have that for free, as an extra "fuck you" to the people who shouldn't have a say in the matter.

Apple doesn't want DRM, the record companies do, the companies that sell MP3 players don't, the artists don't. Even though they didn't create anything, and in my mind, despite what a contract says, have no right to dictate any terms of price or use, the RIAA has final say about who should pay for what, and what you should do with it if you did pay.

Do you agree with having music that is so locked down it's a hassle to transfer to another computer? Do you think it's ok to pay for that? Now that iTunes finally has DRM free music, they decided it would be a good idea to charge you another 30 cents per song that you already bought, to be able to use it the way "thieves" have been able to use their music all along. Sorry, but if you cause me 1 minute of aggravation, I'm going elsewhere. I don't have time for stress for a damn song.

Yes, the RIAA should be brought down by anyone that can do it. Thieves will do it because they happen to be smarter than the people who buy an mp3 player, and then call all kinds of tech support to figure out why they can't play their legally purchased music collection. I used to hear these calls non stop and it drove me crazy.

What if the RIAA eventually vanishes, and the people that have been making the music all along say they don't really care how it's distributed or what it costs? (some say this openly now) Will you retroactively agree that it's now ok to download music?

[yoav]

Originally Posted by Cretaceous Bob

Aren't you a pussy.

Bob's such an asshole for saying people should pay for things if things have a price tag on them.

a) all of your claims are from someone that doesn't pirate, so they are invalid and assumptions based on your own bias. I am making claims based on personal experience, articles, the state of the industry and higher thinking. please go pirate and come back when you have enough background to participate in this thread. or at least admit that you've been to the porn thread, and are a complete hypocrite.

b) this thread has nothing to do with theft

c) there is no price tag on a pirated music file, just as there is no price tag on the digital copy nebraska made onto her ipod. (correction there is no price tag until the riaa decides it's worth $80,000), MANY artists who are signed with record companies that contribute to the riaa speak out against their frivolous lawsuits.

c#) Artists blast record companies over lawsuits against downloaders - one of many articles new and old and examples

d) the only idealist in this thread is you, and it's an idealism based on complete and utter ignorance, and shouting because you're not actually saying anything. 90% of your posts in this thread are identical, and none of them have to do with the thread, they're all based on attacking me on a personal level.

[yoav]

for those who haven't been clicking on the links, here's a brief list of quotes from artists on the riaa, you lazy non link clicking bastards.

– Bob Weir of Grateful Dead:
“They’re protecting an archaic industry. They should turn their attention to new models.”

– David Draiman of Disturbed:
“This is not rocket science. Instead of spending all this money litigating against kids who are the people they’re trying to sell things to in the first place, they have to learn how to effectively use the Internet…. For the artists, my ass. I didn’t ask them to protect me, and I don’t want their protection…..The focus of the industry needs to shift from Soundscan numbers to downloads. It’s the way of the future. You can smell it coming. Stop fighting it, because you can’t.”

– Chuck D of Public Enemy:
“Lawsuits on 12 year old kids for downloading music, duping a mother into paying a $2,000 settlement for her kid? Those scare tactics are pure Gestapo.”

– Moby:
“File sharing is a reality, and it would seem that the labels would do well to learn how to incorporate it into their business models somehow. Record companies suing 12 year old girls for file sharing is kind of like horse and buggy operators suing Henry Ford.”

– Gregg Rollie of Santana and Journey:
“They have all these abnormal practice that keep driving the price up. People think musicians make all that money, but it’s not true. We make the smallest amount.”

– Wayne Coyne of Flaming Lips:
“Who doesn’t want to get paid for their work? But I think it works to musicians’ benefit for people to be able to occasionally listen to their music and, if they really like it, go out and buy it…..I don’t know that there’s any one factor behind the industry. Maybe it’s downloading, or maybe people just didn’t feel like buying so many records. So Metallica makes $10 million instead of $20 million, who cares? To me, the sympathy is unwarranted. Some of this is just the hazard of doing business. It’s the nature of the world. At the end of the day, it’s just rock and roll. It isn’t that big of a deal.”

– 50 Cent:
“What is important for the music industry to understand is that this really doesn’t hurt the artists….The concerts are crowded and the industry must understand that they have to manage all the 360 degrees around an artist. They have to maximize their income from concerts and merchandise. It is the only way they can get their marketing money back….The main problem is that the artists are not getting as much help developing as before file-sharing. They are now learning to peddle ringtones, not records….They don’t understand the value of a perfect piece of art.”

– Janis Ian:
“The premise of all this ballyhoo is that the industry (and its artists) are being harmed by free downloading. Nonsense.”

– Jason Mraz:
“I am also still not ashamed of downloading music and file sharing. We invented it. We love it. We crave it. Even I, an artist whos work is up for grabs hold no material attachment to the product. The songs themselves are the product of the divine and deserve no imprisonment by any organization or device for storing music. Thanks to the technology we created, all art is capable of being seen or heard at the blink of an eye. This is mankind’s greatest achievement in our generation so far. Theft is the issue we must learn to correct. Gratitude is what we must give in return.”

– Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails:
“I remember a time when it felt like, being on a major label, our interests were aligned….But those days are gone. Because, mainly, that infrastructure is broken at the moment. How long before they (record companies) are irrelevant? Who knows? They seem to be doing everything they can to make sure that happens as quickly as possible.”

– Thom Yorke of Radiohead:
“I like the people at our record company, but the time is at hand when you have to ask why anyone needs one. And, yes, it probably would give us some perverse pleasure to say ‘F*ck you’ to this decaying business model.”

[j2x]

Holy shit, this argument is over, in my opinion. Power to the artists, fuck the antiquated man.

THANK YOU FOR POSTING THE QUOTES!