They don't have to sign anything with anybody if they don't want to.
If they do sign a contract stating that a specific record label owns the rights to their music and how it's distributed, then pirates are violating the rights of those record labels by distributing the music without their permission.
I call it "social revolution". :V
Maybe you don't care about record labels, but you don't get to selectively choose whose rights you respect. That's like saying "I'm for freedom of religion, but Scientology should be banned."
Not whose. Which. I also pirate software if I don't wish to pay for it (I have been very supportive of steam), books, movies, etc. I don't give two ****s about copyright law, mostly because it is in dire need of serious reform and is ridiculously unfair in favor of the RIAA/MPAA, who take that advantage from the consumers and the actual people producing the work.
If you don't like the way the system works, you have every right to boycott and not buy their CDs. What you don't get to do is take the music anyway. When you boycott something, you don't get to still have it. That's not the way that the free market works.
All right, let's do things by your free market then.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand
Tell me. What's the supply of the letter "A".
What about the string "010111000010101100100100"?
How about this string: 0100100101010101010101011010010001011010110101101010101010101101010101010010011011101010101010101010010001010010010101010101010101101001000101101011010110101010101010110101010101001001101110101010101010101001000101001001010101010101010110100100010110101101011010101010101011010101010100100110111010101010101010100100010100100101010101010101011010010001011010110101101010101010101101010101010010011011101010101010101010010001010010010101010101010101101001000101101011010110101010101010110101010101001001101110101010101010101001000101001001010101010101010110100100010110101101011010101010101011010101010100100110111010101010101010100100010100100101010101010101011010010001011010110101101010101010101101010101010010011011101010101010101010010001010010010101010101010101101001000101101011010110101010101010110101010101001001101110101010101010101001000101001001010101010101010110100100010110101101011010101010101011010101010100100110111010101010101010100100010100100101010101010101011010010001011010110101101010101010101101010101010010011011101010101010101010010001 (AKA the first few lines of binary from a copyrighted data file).
Beyond that, boycotting something means we don't pay for it from a certain source. IMO it's perfectly fair game to fight a system by going to the competitors.
And you obviously do feel entitled, because you wouldn't take songs for free if you didn't. It's bad enough that you're a thief, you should at least have enough integrity to admit that you're one. Stop pretending like you care anything about helping artists. People who steal music do it purely for selfish reasons.
Because I like music? My music expenditures would not be any higher if I didn't pirate. I just don't have the money. I don't feel entitled to the music, I just take it anyways.
You just got through saying that you wouldn't buy the CDs anyway, and now you admit that you would buy them if you had the money. You don't get to have something for free just because you don't have the money for it. The CD will still be there when you do have the money.
No, you're misreading my argument.
If I am willing to support them in the first place, then I check if I have the money, and if I'm willing to pay that much money for the product. If a CD costs 20 bucks, I'm obviously not. Then I check if I have the money. And yes, the CD will still be there when I have the money. But will my interest be? I doubt it.
Why shouldn't the person who owns the rights to the movie get to determine who gets to see it and under what circumstances?
Because me having a movie and then the movie industry dying out >>> me not having said movie and then the movie industry dying out. People are *****ing about cinemas, but it ain't because we can get the movies for free (I wouldn't want to see Avatar on anything other than a home theater with 3D). It's because:
-Tickets cost 12 ****ing bucks. I could buy the DVD for that money.
-Popcorn costs 5 ****ing bucks. **** THAT ****.
-The theaters are getting shafted to hell and back by the movie industry! Seriously! Usually around 75%, all the way up to 90% from opening week ticket sales is not going back into the theatre.
-Home theaters are widely available (and less crowded).
The movie is the service. They don't charge you for just being at the movie theater. You can go to a theater and hang out in the lobby, and it doesn't cost you a dime.
Would you rather watch Avatar on an Imax 3D screen or your laptop monitor? There is quite the service in a big ****ing room with a big ****ing screen.
I'm assuming. A pretty easy assumption when you look at how you won't be making much of a profit if you produce independently unless you're huge (due to production costs), and you get a fraction of the profit from the CD if you're signed.
Yeah, but the wildflowers you're picking aren't created by someone else. Music is the product of someone else's labor. When you take the product of someone else's labor without their permission and without compensating them, you're enslaving them.
You should read that Courtney Love article, it's a real eye-opener.
Also, again, it's still a
victimless crime. That's the comparison that matters. NOBODY IS LOSING MONEY.
Because it's the product of their labor, and people have a right to themselves, their property, and the product of their labor.
Rights.
No, it's more like typing an entire book online for the whole world to read without buying it, or a band stealing another band's song and playing it at their own concert.
The latter is called a cover song.
I said that I bet it's gotten worse since 2004. I have to provide a source for me betting that?
Nope, but it would be nice if you didn't spout bets like that.
This has NOTHING to do with technology, you moron. It's about taking the product of someone else's labor, which is slavery. When you say that you're entitled to the benefits of someone else's hard work, you're advocating slavery. There's no technology that has ever or could ever exist that would make slavery okay.
What?
Wait, WHAT?
Okay, hold the phone here. First of all, "piracy" in its modern form literally was coined when radio was invented. The music industry has been launching the EXACT SAME COMPLAINT the whole ****ing time.
This is pretty easy. It's a new technology that requires a different business model. Freezers are "stealing" from ice vendors, and drove them out of business. If only they had decided to sell something else and didn't starve to death... Piracy is "stealing" from the record companies and musicians and driving them out of business. However, there are
alternate models of business that work with it. As in, you have to change how you do business to compete with piracy. We don't outlaw awesome new technology that makes access easier and supply greater because it puts some people who are unwilling to adapt out of business. Again, musicians have to change their business model. We want it to change, and we're showing our disapproval with the system.
I already said that it would hurt the greedy people who think that they're entitled to free music.
Yes. And those that I mentioned. And, by the way, you're ignoring the whole PR factor. For example, a friend of mine told me about this kickass band called "Heathen". He linked me to a few youtube videos. Clearly, this is copyright infringement. But now I know that this band exists, and I want to hear more of them. I'll be recommending them to friends, checking if their shows come through town, plugging them in my piracy-advocating-posts. I'll probably "steal" their music, because I'm too lazy to find it legally and I don't really have the cash to spend. But I am definitely spreading the word about the band. This is also kind of what CDs and the like are good for in the bittorrent-supporting business model for music-promotion for what you're actually going to earn money on.
When you choose to boycott something, YOU DON'T GET TO HAVE IT ANYWAY. That is NOT how the free market works. That's anti-capitalism, plain and simple.
I'm not boycotting the artists. I'm definitely not boycotting them. I'm boycotting the record companies. And let me ask you this-what better way of doing that is there than pirating, and then donating to the band?
If you really think that most people who pirate music donate money to the artists, you're an idiot. Also, stop acting like record labels are ripping anyone off. Artists aren't forced to sign with them. The fact that they do means that they feel the benefits are worth the costs. Maybe they only get 10% of each CD sold(assuming what you say is true, I have no idea), but they must be making more money than they would be trying to sell their music on their own. If they weren't then they wouldn't need a record label.
1. Obviously, they don't. But they provide services in way or PR, they are usually higher spenders as far as actually buying things go (
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090604/0117405122.shtml ), they're more likely to actually
know about the band and be interested when, say, the tour comes through town (I'm not going to go to a show by a band I've never heard of. If I hadn't pirated that megadeth, I'd be thinking, "hmm, megadeth headlining in the stadium... not interested" instead of "OH MY GOD THE MOST INCREDIBLE BAND EVER IS PLAYING
MUST FIND TICKETS"), more likely to want to wear the band's merch, et cetera.
2. You have two options. 1. Go to a label, and get famous (and almost certainly ripped off). 2. Try to strike it out on your own, never really get that far. I wish I was kidding. It's a rhino's bargain; "do it our way or find another job". They aren't forced to sign, but they might as well be. The record companies are middlemen. Nothing more. And they aren't needed. Most musicians act like they still are anyways though.
Really? That's your response? If all artists were really benefiting from piracy, then wouldn't it make sense that they'd all distribute their own music for free and there'd be no piracy? Doesn't the fact that that's not the case make you want to rethink your position at all?
It is the case with several bands. Go to BFMV's myspace and they have most of their hit tracks for free listening (this is not uncommon). Go check out NIN or Radiohead. A lot of newcomer bands are using this tech to spread the word around (in earlier stages, your music is not to earn money, it's to tell people you exist).
That's not how it works. Your suggestion that "they'd keep doing it because they love it" is an outdated socialist argument that's been proven wrong time and time again throughout history. The best of everything always comes when people have the most potential to gain from that particular thing. You act like someone who's never bothered to look into the arguments against your position.
It's not the same argument. "They'd keep doing it because they love it" differs in key aspects when it comes to artists. First of all, almost by definition, an artist does what he does because he wants to. Musician/Painter/Author is not like a desk job. If you aren't called to it, you're going to end up doing it poorly, halfheartedly, or at the very least without much soul in it. I mean, let me put it to you this way-if people didn't love music, why would they look at the ratio of people who have made a living making music vs. the people who have tried and failed and not decide, "hmm, I'm going to finish college".
We don't need health care reform, health care reform WAS passed, and corporations couldn't bribe the government if the government didn't have so much power.
Umm... Hang on a sec. We aren't talking about socialized medicine here. It was passed, and it was also gutted. The government has way too much power though, I agree.
BP is actually voluntarily trying to pay back the people who have lost business due to the oil spill, because they want to win back the people who have been boycotting them since it happened. This is a perfect example of the free market working.
Of course, I don't know why you'd be against the fishing industry being hurt by the oil spill, since they're only losing "potential sales."
Ooh, I knew that would come back to bite me in the *** at some point. Although, to be fair, losing 100% of all your material you could potentially sell is a lot more like theft than piracy.
Fair enough, a sensible vid.
People don't have to sign with record companies, and record companies couldn't bribe the government if the government didn't have so much power.
See above.
You buy CDs and merchandise because you want them, not because you want to support anyone. If you want something from someone you have to meet their requirements to get it. If you can't meet the requirements, or you don't think it's worth it, then you don't have to agree to the exchange, but you don't get to still take the thing you wanted for free.
I pay for things that have infinite supply and finite demand because I want to support those çreating said things. There's no other reason to-it's not like I'm actually taking a CD, which requires resources, I'm taking data which requires no resources.
Record labels don't enslave anyone. No one has to sign with them at all.
See above. You don't have to, but you might as well.
The links you sent me just talk about things that I've already rebutted in this thread. The one with the figure about each band member getting $4,031.25 while the record company gets $710,000 looks bad, until you realize that the band must realize that $4,031.25 each is way more than they'd be making without the record company. If it wasn't, then bands wouldn't sign with record companies in the first place. And it's not like the record company is agreeing to give them more and then not doing it, because that would be against the law. They have to agree to let the record company keep that much, and if they don't agree then they don't have to sign with them. They agree to it because they know it's worth it.
So the system is corrupt, and I will continue boycotting the record industry while supporting the artist to the best of my abilities. And you can get bigger without them, it just hasn't occurred to most people.
And if you think that artists aren't getting paid enough, how is stealing their songs accomplishing anything? You aren't helping them any by taking their music for free. That's just a red herring to avoid having to defend your own actions. Even if the record labels were as evil and exploitative as you've been brainwashed to believe they are, that still wouldn't justify you stealing from them.
YES WE ARE.
Read up, been explained.
Gotta say, your most convincing point is that it's their property and their right to do what they want with it. However, I like to weaken that by saying, "They aren't me, therefore they are less important than me". And, additionally, I'm taking their product, but I'm giving something back in return.
