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Hi all,I'm new to the whole Taxi experience so thought i'd share this with you for openers.There are numerous websites that sell cd albums illegaly, especially in Russia. I'm not just talking small artists here either, but all the big names have cd's sold for only a few bucks with none of the cash finding it's way back to the artist. Only reason i mention this is i found one of my cd's for sale over there as well.As a member of one of the copyright societies, i've noticed a head in the sand attitude regarding this issue as allegedly some of these sites are financed by the russian mafia. I know some of the major labels took the russians to court and did actually get some cash out of them but that was a while ago and someone in my position just doesn't have the funds to take these boys on. So what are our options?

Join the Russian Mafia and secretly replace all digital music files with the sound of donkeys braying? Seriously, though. This is complex. Educating the public might be one step to dealing with this. E.g. some books have a notice on their inner first page stating that if they are in a bookstore and the cover is missing, they were remainders that were supposed to be returned or destroyed and are being sold illegally. They go on to state that the author and publishers are hurt when people buy these books being sold without permission.Perhaps something similar could be done to educate consumers of music about sites that illegally sell music without the composer/ musician's permission. Welcome to Taxi, BTW -- this is a wonderful place to be!Best regards,Suz

Thanks for the welcome. Part of the problem i think, which has been mentioned elsewhere is a lot of the music listening public have way too much access to so called "free" music or very heavily discounted tracks or cd's available from dubious sources. It's almost like they think this is how it should be.For the smaller artists it's just a nightmare tbh. The music copyright societies are toothless in this regard and the majors cater for renumeration for their "big" acts only. Those of us further down the food chain end up with zip. It's a very sad state of affairs with no obvious solution.

There's really not much that can be done about these bottom feeders, at this point.

For most indies, this is probably not a big deal. I find new feature (one click download from almost any Flash player) on Real Player much more dangerous. Basically, it allows anyone to download anything from (almost) anywhere with a single click...

I see a few of my tunes being downloaded illegally from various sites. It's enraging, in a flattering sort of way!

Illegal downloads are just one of the problems, those rotten swines in Russia have the audacity to sell mine and i'm at a loss how to deal with it

Oh yeah, they're selling mine too. But I can't begin for the life of me to figure out what to do, so instead I choose to accept. Yeah, I know the situation sucks...

Apr 2, 2009, 7:01pm, musicliner wrote:For most indies, this is probably not a big deal. I find new feature (one click download from almost any Flash player) on Real Player much more dangerous. Basically, it allows anyone to download anything from (almost) anywhere with a single click...Yeah, I noticed that about Real Player. The potential for abuse with easy downloading features like this is enormous. Let's just hope that on-demand streaming of music on the Internet becomes so popular that downloading music will be old-fashioned! The next challenge after that will be shutting down illegal streaming services, but I'm hoping that will be an easier problem for lawmakers and enforcers.-Allen

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,Cisko