Pirate Bay owners sentenced to prison

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@BlackThorne

Is it not reasonable to assume that file sharing exposes them to a much greater sphere of music? User configurable radio if you like, and it seems that those who listen to it most tend to buy it after all.

Besides, the music industry dominates the radio stations to ensure that only certain songs get played, so if you have alternate or broader tastes, there is no way to try before you buy. And with them cracking down on internet radio, what other choice do you have?

 

BTA, I of course meant that pirates are heavy media consumers whether they pay for it or not. My point was that instead of trying to stop piracy which is pointless and doomed to fail the effort should be made to make the "pirates" or rather the big media consumers to pay for a larger share of the media they consume.

 

I do not believe it is possible to use deterrence, the only thing the attempts at that creates is resentment. Of course, I do not think we have any solid facts but just anecdotal evidence but I am confident that if they manage to stop all pirating of licensed media then consumtion would plummet. I believe a very very small proportion would go back to consuming like in the old days. Instead the consumtion would shift to the stuff that is free of which there is plenty. I honestly believe the industry is shooting themselves in the foot in the way they act and perhaps it is a good thing. The only thing I fear is that we might end up with a locked and completely regulated internet.

Morgoroth, I do believe in regulation in normal society. I do believe in high taxes and a big "common pot" for everyone to eat from. Basically I am a socialist but part of that is also freedom in some areas. Also, is there anynoe who is really consistent in their beliefs?

 

It's all completely subjective of course. The owners legally have the right to determine a price for their own products. I personally decide for myself what is a reasonable price, and most entertainment is way over that. It's not legal, and it's morally problematic.
Life is expensive enough, and if we also had to pay full price for entertainment, we'd either have very boring free time, or be working entirely to pay off the system. Given the fact that I have stingy-ness from both sides (half-dutch, half scottish), I'd probably choose to buy nothing, and have nothing.
The entertainment industry is worse off than other service providers, because it's easy to take what we want from them. Other companies have easier enforcement, that's just how it is. I'd prefer to cut costs on rent or taxes, than short-change the entertainment industry.

Eggzacktly. I try to look at every issue rationally, and if I have a strong opinion, I'll voice it. Most of the time, they are swayed towards the left side of the spectrum, but occasionally I'll be defending a hard-line righteous position. They're just labels, but don't see too much into them.

 

This is a common misconception. The music industry most assuredly does not dictate what radio station can and cannot play. Radio stations pay a blanket fee (on a sliding scale, based on the station's total revenue) to BMI, ASCAP, and SESAC, but these companies do not, in fact dictate what the station can and cannot play.

If I really wanted to start an Adult Contemporary station that plays nothing but album cuts, dips into country, Classic Rock, R&B, Jazz, Orchestral music, J-Pop, and Polka -- I could. I wouldn't even pay a premium to do it. The music that stations choose to play is limited primarily by what the station feels its listeners want to hear (even most small market stations pay top dollar for research delving into the likes and dislikes of its listeners), and stations like the one in my example simply don't exist because they aren't marketable to a mass audience. A station with such an "eclectic" selection would lose some listeners to the Mozart, some to Britney Spears, some to Miles Davis, and still others to the J-Pop. In the end, such a station wouldn't have any steady listeners left...and only the steady listeners stay around to hear the ads that keep the station afloat.

 

It does. It's known as XM.

 

T2, thanks for explaining. Now I follow you.

I really do, I know.

Not necessarily; my parents got me a gaming rig before I was old enough to have a job (in hindsight, holy crap, you know you're upper middle class when...). But that was my rig for a long, long time. Wouldn't have had the money for it myself, as my allowance was something like $20/week. Or maybe $10/week, I don't recall. Something like that. But in general, sure.

Could be. My point was that the hardcore PC gaming industry exists because its consumers do the right thing, or at least do the right thing often enough to make gaming companies viable. How many avid PC gamers don't have broadband, or access to broadband?

ETA: Because it's vaguely related and totally hilarious, the woman who tried to commercially publish her own sequel to Twilight said the following in her own defense:
"Laws that attempt to privatize the ownership of characters operate based on a delusion of separateness that we all share in this matrix we call reality. But according to Eckart Tolle, author of The Power of Now, there is no such a thing as separate minds. There is only one Universal Mind and it is the source of all our thoughts. "

 

I'd like to pick at this particular bit in the first article Proteus posted on the last page:

I'm just wondering...from where on earth has anyone got data on the increase of "consumption of music"?

What dose even "consumption of music" mean? Specifically, what does the 'music' part mean in this context specifically? Music produced by big record labels? Music played in the radio? Music produced by record labels and downloaded illegally? From where does the data come from?

Is a record borrowed from the public library considered as "music consumption"? Are these numbers on the increase? Is an alternative or independent record listened from an internet radio station "consumption of music"? Is a song listened from myspace considered as "consumption of music"?

You get the picture...

I don't like piracy, in the 90's a pirate cd around here had in many cases a direct cnnection to eastern mafia since it was far too often bought from the black market accross the border.

There's a lot of BS going on on both sides. One fact is that the movie industry is definitely losing huge piles of money because of piracy and the whole industry is in crisis because of that. The record industry is losing as well, but it does bug me that the time's they are a-changing and it seems that the way the record labels are trying to cope with the situation is suing the heck out of everyone they can (but also with good cause).

As a (wannabe) musician, I'm not too happy about how major record companies have handled many artists on their "payroll". The biggest income for the people who actually make the music is usually not the records themselves, but the gigs and the paraphenalia, T-shirts and such. (unless it's a huge international superstar)

So, the big money's losing money big. It's not right, it doesn't make piracy the right thing to do, but I can't help but feel a little schadenfreude since the big labels erally should take a good look at a mirror and see how they've handled their poop. Basically there's a lot of parasites in the industry already, I don't think we need more of them around, but the whole thing sounds a lot like a pot calling a kettel black.

 

What a load of Do you really think people living in the US who pirate stuff are worrying about getting busted by the police? We don't ive in a police/big brother state. The chances of getting busted for piracy are extremely remote. Just like most people who drive too fast don't get ticketed for speeding. Just like most people who use illegal drugs don't get arrested. Police have limited resources too, and most of those resources are going to be divereted to stopping violent crime, and going after major distributors of pirated material, not the guy downloading stuff from his home internet connection. I think you have a pretty significant misconception of what the police in the US do.

I cannot believe this even needs to be asked. I think that pirating stuff is wrong, illegal, and tantamount to stealing from the developer of the product. The last time I copied a game was when I was about 12 years old and didn't realize what I was doing was wrong. It was back when we still had floppy disks (the big ass 5 1/4 inch jobs), I played them on my Commodore 64 computer, and dinosaurs roamed the earth.

 

Ah, Tal, you record the TV-shows you want to see? Do you fast forward past the commercials? Or do you record it from commercial free state television or subscription based stations? If you are recording from advertisement based tv-stations and you fast forward through the ads how is what you are doing any different from someone downloading the same episode?

 

Because the broadcaster gets the advertising revenue (and uses that revenue to pay for the shows) regardless of whether Tal skips through the commercials. It's no different than if he watched the show when it airs, but leaves the room, or flips to another station, during the commercial breaks.

Not to mention that, unlike piracy, taping TV shows isn't illegal.

 

Aldeth, your last quote was from AMaster, not me. No harm done

Maybe the police are more relaxed than in the States than your laws would dictate, it would be stupid of me to argue about that with someone who lives there.
Here's a question though: let's say an anti-pirating hardliner has evidence that someone he knows has pirated. If he were to report this to the police, are the police not legally obligated to take action? In Holland, the police would send the man away, stating that the piracy taking place is too insignificant to present to the officer of justice. Since their policy is to not prosecute pirates under a very significant threshhold, the pirates are safer.
Since there is no official policy in the States regarding enforcement against piracy, people who download are at greater risk. I'd be very surprised if this risk wasn't in the back of the minds of at least some pirates.

 

TIVO?

 

Granted.

 

I thought it was because they have just been making crappy games...PC gamers are more demanding - they actually want a story and characters - something game designers are not very good at these days.

Yeah, "point and shoot" and hard up guys can get to see a few BNL for a change. What could be easier?