Websites illegaly selling albums

[ciskokidd]

Apr 6, 2009, 11:08am, sgs4u wrote:Apr 6, 2009, 10:49am, ciskokidd wrote:We really need to pressure our government agencies to crack down on these websites - and the best way to do that is to have our ISPs block their content. Of course people will start crying about first amendment rights and what not, but in reality there should be no "rights" to illegal sites of any kind.They will shut down an illegal porn site and justifiably so in a heartbeat, so why can't they make our ISPs block access to these sites?I understand the pros and cons of peer-to-peer networking and illegal sharing of music is a complex issue, but these Russian and Chinese sites selling stolen music goes way into illegal territory.My 2 Cents,CiskoBut Cisko, right below your post, is a guy giving away his music for free.davidharrell 's giving away his music. It's hilarious... there's no way to control what people are going to download anymore. The perception of potential buyers would need to change, and that won't happen while some artists are happy to give away their stuff. I have no problem with people wanting to give away their stuff. We need a new system that isn't about punishing people who want to listen and acquire music. Cause we can't bust someone for downloading illegally when someone else is offering to give stuff away. The laws won't work if the public's perception is diluted by free giveaways. Record labels gave away 10% of the cd's they made, as promo copies. I bet they still do that, if not more. I don't have answers yet, but I'm working diligently on some! Steve, don't get me wrong, I realize that giving away music by choice is within the rights of any artist and/or record label for that matter. That's not what we're talking about here.What Goulash is talking about is sites in Russia and China, who profit from selling stolen music to an unsuspecting or undiscerning public. I would suspect that the people downloading from these Russian sites and paying for their music believe that the artists and labels are seeing their fair share. But that is not the case.It's akin to you creating/designing a product (whether intellectual property or tangible) and then me stealing it from you, and selling it out on the street using your good name to make a profit.a. It undercuts your price so people will flock to my street corner instead of buying it from you.b. It pays no dividends back to you so you are forced by sheer economics to lose your business.Now multiply that by thousands and you get an idea of how much money these criminals are making.In the end, how can a legitimate business model like ITunes survive when I can go down the street to RTunes and get my tracks for a fraction of the cost? And how can artists who currently make their living selling independent music online survive when RTunes doesn't give them even a tiny cut of the pie?Can you dig it? Cisko

[sgs4u]

Apr 6, 2009, 12:17pm, ciskokidd wrote:Steve, don't get me wrong, I realize that giving away music by choice is within the rights of any artist and/or record label for that matter. That's not what we're talking about here.What Goulash is talking about is sites in Russia and China, who profit from selling stolen music to an unsuspecting or undiscerning public. I would suspect that the people downloading from these Russian sites and paying for their music believe that the artists and labels are seeing their fair share. But that is not the case.It's akin to you creating/designing a product (whether intellectual property or tangible) and then me stealing it from you, and selling it out on the street using your good name to make a profit.a. It undercuts your price so people will flock to my street corner instead of buying it from you.b. It pays no dividends back to you so you are forced by sheer economics to lose your business.Now multiply that by thousands and you get an idea of how much money these criminals are making.In the end, how can a legitimate business model like ITunes survive when I can go down the street to RTunes and get my tracks for a fraction of the cost? And how can artists who currently make their living selling independent music online survive when RTunes doesn't give them even a tiny cut of the pie?Can you dig it? CiskoIllegal sites in Russia and China are not going away. Even if their governments legislate them to comply with international agreements, those are black markets that won't be changing. It matters to us, that what they are doing is illegal and immoral. It also matters to them, BECAUSE of the same reasons. Their businesses depend on it remaining illegal.My other point with my last post was that when anyone gives music away for free, it perpetuates the public's acceptance that music is a free commodity. It creates the very conditions that you are "against." Which is that music should not be allowed to be used to make money, unless dividends are going back to the creators/publishers, if I understand your perspective correctly. I agree that anyone should be allowed to give away his music for free. I also agree that any entity other than the creator or publisher should not be allowed to give away that music. But it's already happening and we are powerless to stop it. Is free music actually a bad thing? Or is the bad thing that people aren't getting paid for making it? My belief is that there oughtta be some other NEW way of remunerating creators, other than forcing them to become internet world police.

[ciskokidd]

Steve, I think we are agreeing more than disagreeing here. I too believe that new markets and new business models need to be formed to move music forward and not to sit on the sidelines and cry about our lost revenues the way the majors are.And yes piracy and illegal sites will always be an issue, but if we do nothing to stop these sites then there may very well be no business model that works in the future.I mean seriously just take it to another industry. If we just allowed Russia to flood the markets with stolen PCs, cars, TVs, etc. and just sat idly by as the manufacturers of these items went bust, then our industries would fall to pieces.That's why they shut these operations down and we have a great deal of law enforcement trying to stop these types of activities in these other industries.Why not in regards to music. Do we have no value? Cisko

[mojobone]

We've had free music available for a very long time now; it's called radio. The thing that's missing is the mechanism Steve mentioned, whereby the creators of the music are compensated by the advertisers that are ultimately benefitting from said music.

[ragani]

Sometimes it's hard not to feel frustrated about these kinds of things. Frustrating! I remember a good friend of ours (who started a major new age/jazz label) once told me that they shipped thousands of CD's to India, and when they were recalling any unsold CD's, they would get back more than they actually shipped in the first place! LOL! Aurgh!! Aurgh!!! When we were in India back in the early 90's, one of our program directors found a secret shop that was printing our books and distributing them for top dollar! When they wouldn't hand over the plates to her (she demanded it on the spot when she caught them red-handed!), she went and got a handful of really big western men and bullied those printing plates out of their hands!! No kidding!!! Honestly!!! With digital sales, the accounting is clearly so much more difficult to keep track of. I cringe when people come up to me at our live events and give me CD's of "mixes" they've made from other artists that they want to "share" with their friends. Really irks me, and I have to do all I can to contain myself, because I know they'll be doing that with our music too. (And one lady was even selling her "mixes" at her storefront(!!!), which later closed. (Yes, I did speak up when I saw her selling them outright as pirated copies.)There just no escaping those laws of karma... and I'll let you guys know if I find any of your music in India!! LOL!!!

[allends]

Apr 6, 2009, 7:46pm, ragani wrote:... and I'll let you guys know if I find any of your music in India!! LOL!!!In all honesty, my first order of business is to create music that someone would want to acquire illegally! Allen

[davewalton]

Apr 7, 2009, 5:25am, allends wrote:Apr 6, 2009, 7:46pm, ragani wrote:... and I'll let you guys know if I find any of your music in India!! LOL!!!In all honesty, my first order of business is to create music that someone would want to acquire illegally! Allen That's a good one...

[ciskokidd]

Apr 7, 2009, 6:13am, davewalton wrote:Apr 7, 2009, 5:25am, allends wrote:In all honesty, my first order of business is to create music that someone would want to acquire illegally! Allen That's a good one... Ahhh yes!!Good point Allen. And on that note let's all get back to work and write some great songs worthy of being stolen!Best,Cisko