The publics attitude on piracy

[Hookjaw Brown]

Just a couple of points;

1) There is a site called 'The Sixty One' , which is a music game. One of the tasks is to pick an artist and support them by donating eighty cents or more to their account for game points. These points are then used to get songs a higher score in the game (more popular). Yes, gamers do this. When an artist accumulates over twenty bucks a PayPal distribution is made.

2) My sister works as a marketer for the Savannah Music Festival. This female duo asked her if management would allow a marketing trick they wanted to try...let the people who wanted their CD pay anything they wanted. The women announced this deal during their show. My sis said that the lowest amount paid was $8.00 by some teenagers, and the highest was $20. The total sales though, surpassed the sales of the other artists at the festival.

There are people out there who support artists. The trick is to find them and market to them directly.

[Len911]

+1 for your savy sister from Savannah!

[t4mh]

I agree completely that all muscians, composers, artists, bands, labels, publishers, everyone, should be compensated fairly and that stealing has to be recognized as stealing and stop. But its such a large, wide spread problem that cuts across national boundaries. Some cultures will argue that it isn't stealing at all. Service providers will side step the issue not wanting to piss off their clients. There is no single governing body that can effectively legislate against it. Fair use laws already make legislation difficult. I have my ideas about what it would take to stop it. I'm curious, what do ya'll think the fix for this issue is?

Keith

[jdstamper]

Don't get me wrong, I don't see an easy fix. I've had this debate with "file sharers" who rationalize that they are NOT stealing. They believe that "music should be free" and musicians can "make enough money from concerts and merchandise". This doesn't leave much for the majority of working musicians, and songwriters.

I hope at some point it the ISPs will be able or wiling to block illegal downloads. and music websites could be more like radio stations (ie. Pandora) for listening, not downloading, and sell advertising and/or subscriptions to pay for music licensing.

Jim

[t4mh]

I hope at some point it the ISPs will be able or wiling to block illegal downloads.

I don't really buy this idea. The ISPs will probably try to side step this by saying that their intent is to provide a quality service to their paying customers. A bunch of griping musicians are not really paying customers. Policing content is not what their business is or has ever been about. The other side step for users is having your connection made somewhere else in the world that has different laws and so you can download whatever. But to tell you the truth even terrorists use the internet and download all kinds of way serious junk that makes what we're griping about look fairly lame. If we can't get control of THAT issue then what future do you really think stopping illegal downloading has as far as an ISP is concerned. As far as ISPs being willing to block, they would need to make a bunch of money to compensate for the loss of user/subscribers they'll piss off once they start this. A lot of them are publicly traded and the policy would be bad for the stock price. Who's going to pay for all that? Musicians?

I guess it could happen but I wouldn't hold my breath...
So whats the next idea?

Just askin
Keith

[elser]

I hope at some point it the ISPs will be able or wiling to block illegal downloads. and music websites could be more like radio stations (ie. Pandora) for listening, not downloading, and sell advertising and/or subscriptions to pay for music licensing.

I think the answer may be in that direction. Not only because of illegal downloading but for many other reasons I can foresee some kind of global institution that oversees internet content. It would be difficult, but I can't imagine there are many countries that support having images of children being raped, and instructions on how to make a dirty bomb available freely to every home with a computer. I don't understand why it hasn't happened already.

[Hookjaw Brown]

You must remember the little battle between Tipper Gore and Frank Zappa over song lyrics! Once you go over the cliff of censorship, if doesn't stop till the bottom.

[mazz]

I don't think this is about censorship, that's an entirely different issue, this is about intellectual property. If the public valued money the same as they value intellectual property, Berne Madoff would still be out there doing his thing!

This is about intellectual property, it's much bigger than a few "griping musicians"! The protection of intellectual property is fundamental to fostering creativity and innovation in our society and culture, it's just that the digital nature of that property and the ease of moving it around has outpaced the ability to police that movement.

The ISPs are on the front lines of this because they control the gateways to the internet. Again, if intellectual property was valued as much as money, then the ISPs could possibly be prosecuted as accessories to what would equate as money laundering. Education of the public on this would go a long ways toward beginning to open peoples' eyes to this issue. It probably can't come from the big companies because people don't trust them anyway, same with the government. It has to come from the grass roots artists who stand to lose the most over the long haul from this.

I hope we are all in the position someday to make a living from our creative work, our intellectual property. I think some of us would be singing a different tune if our livelihood was affected by a bunch of people in China and other parts of the world effectively stealing our work and taking potential income out of our pockets. Yes a few rock stars who make money from concert tickets and T-shirts might not feel the pinch as much, but there's not very many of those, and there's thousands of us who aren't and will never be rock stars but still have the potential to make a nice living from our creative endeavors. Why not start acting like we are already in that position and see it from that perspective?

Ask someone who consistently steals music or movies what the world would be like with mediocre or shitty music or movies because they're all made by amateurs with day gigs because they can't afford to do it full time anymore due to lost royalties from piracy.

I think there will be a new business model emerging eventually, but that business model will have to embrace the concept of intellectual property and have protections for it designed in. This cuts far across many different disciplines, not just music or the arts. It's one of the bedrocks principles of our society and culture and we all need to understand it better and teach our friends and kids about it. The record companies, PROs, and entertainment industry in general has done a bad job, maybe even a non-existent job, of educating the public on this concept. It's up to us, the ones who currently benefit from it and hopefully will in the future!!

Mazz

[elser]

I don't think this is about censorship, that's an entirely different issue, this is about intellectual property. If the public valued money the same as they value intellectual property, Berne Madoff would still be out there doing his thing!

This is about intellectual property, it's much bigger than a few "griping musicians"! The protection of intellectual property is fundamental to fostering creativity and innovation in our society and culture, it's just that the digital nature of that property and the ease of moving it around has outpaced the ability to police that movement.

The ISPs are on the front lines of this because they control the gateways to the internet. Again, if intellectual property was valued as much as money, then the ISPs could possibly be prosecuted as accessories to what would equate as money laundering. Education of the public on this would go a long ways toward beginning to open peoples' eyes to this issue. It probably can't come from the big companies because people don't trust them anyway, same with the government. It has to come from the grass roots artists who stand to lose the most over the long haul from this.

I hope we are all in the position someday to make a living from our creative work, our intellectual property. I think some of us would be singing a different tune if our livelihood was affected by a bunch of people in China and other parts of the world effectively stealing our work and taking potential income out of our pockets. Yes a few rock stars who make money from concert tickets and T-shirts might not feel the pinch as much, but there's not very many of those, and there's thousands of us who aren't and will never be rock stars but still have the potential to make a nice living from our creative endeavors. Why not start acting like we are already in that position and see it from that perspective?

Ask someone who consistently steals music or movies what the world would be like with mediocre or shitty music or movies because they're all made by amateurs with day gigs because they can't afford to do it full time anymore due to lost royalties from piracy.

I think there will be a new business model emerging eventually, but that business model will have to embrace the concept of intellectual property and have protections for it designed in. This cuts far across many different disciplines, not just music or the arts. It's one of the bedrocks principles of our society and culture and we all need to understand it better and teach our friends and kids about it. The record companies, PROs, and entertainment industry in general has done a bad job, maybe even a non-existent job, of educating the public on this concept. It's up to us, the ones who currently benefit from it and hopefully will in the future!!

Mazz

Amen.

Jon

[elser]

You must remember the little battle between Tipper Gore and Frank Zappa over song lyrics! Once you go over the cliff of censorship, if doesn't stop till the bottom.

It's not censorship, child pornography, owning weapons like a dirty bomb, and stealing music are all illegal activities. The internet is a vehicle that enables those activities. We can theorize intellectually all we want about free speech but that won't help anybody. The dangers to individuals outweigh the theoretical danger to free speech on the internet. Free speech is just a concept, it's already being regulated even in this country, that's what the FCC does. A global agency that regulates internet content will happen eventually. It's just a matter of how much damage it takes before it becomes a necessity.