Do you use a file sharing system to obtain music or software files?

Computers & Internet Forum

Do you use a file sharing system to obtain music or software files?

Until the law says otherwise, it feels like theft to me. I don't want to feel like a theif.

I think the law definitely needs revision though when it comes to the rights of media "owners", film, television and music. Even though the media company was the one who put for the production dollars, effort and expertise to develop the final product:

1) particularly in the case of musicians, I don't think the compensation is good enough. The studios have zero talent. It's the musicians that the public cares about. There are countless top-notch musicians out there just waiting to be discovered - fantastic talent that the world would love to experience, but if they're not picked up by a major studio then they will go largely unheard. The studio provides the production and marketing resources to bring the musicians into the lime light, but in my opinion, their clout leaves them with a strangle-hold around the necks of musicians. There have been so many tales of shooting starts that ended up bankrupt because of corporate greed - fans are then deprived of what they wanted because the musician is incapacitated. It's all subjective on this topic though..

2) The art produced by actors, directors, musicians, writers, etc is just that: art. In my opinion, no corporation should hold the rights to art such that the rest of the world has to pay that corporation to partake in the art work. ART belongs to all humanity. It is representative of who we are. Our music expresses how we feel. Our shows express the problems we are faced with. It is my wish that studios had a way to make their $billions by way of presentation/distribution networks or something of the sort, but that they are not permitted to "OWN" the work. The work belongs to the people and the people can do what they damn well please with it. If that means the people want to re-distribute it on the Internet, then that's their prerogative. Of course studios would whine today about how that would rob them of their investment and how would they ever make their money? BY EVOLVING. The jerks want to continue operating in the same way they have been for 50 years and expect nothing to change with time. Times are changing. College students are able to set up powerful distribution networks of their own over the Internet with ZERO funding. You'd think the studios would WANT to get on top of the times and make sure they're out in front. No. Instead they prefer to sign their bankrolls over to attourneys and let the justice system work it all out for them. And up to now, that strategy has worked. It's landing them a win in every case. Look at DeCSS. Look at Napster. Look at what's next. They'll all end up the same until someone comes along and revolutionizes this system, truly illuminating the obsolecence of the past.

3) On the side of software.. this is truly the hard development work of a company (gee, can you tell I'm a software engineer? hah! ) to produce a tangible product. If their software is getting ripped off and illegally distributed, in my opinion that's their own fault for not including an effective licensing technology that prevents illegitimate software from operating. Hackers are honing their skills though and admittedly this is an increasingly difficult task - but not impossible. I think distribution & licensing systems need careful scrutiny these days though. With the extensiveness of the Internet and speed of downlink connections, it's virtually unneccesary to release printed manuals and/or CDROM application CD's any more. This eliminates printing, packaging and distribution costs, in turn reducing the cost overhead for the product, in return reducing the cost of the product. I think companies like Microsoft and Adobe could learn much from this. It seems Microsoft is well on their way.. we'll see how long it takes Adobe to play catch up. Instant product fulfillment should do nothing other than INCREASE product sales due to convenience. I'm always a fan of lowering product prices to keep the consumers happy.

My current lack of a broadband connection leaves me no choise

Personally, I don't really think it's wrong to use a P2P client or IRC or what have you to download stuff. I probably don't own a single piece of software installed on my PC. It's all too expensive to go out and buy the actual software. What happened to the original spirit of the internet? Free trading of information among millions of people. Does that not include the software that holds the fabric of the internet together?

Even if it is illegal to do so, people will continue to trade music and software over the internet, even more so with the growing popularity of broadband internet service.

In the 80s it was using Bulletin Board systems, now it's Kazaa, Limewire, Grokster, etc. or over the ever popular IRC networks. You'll never stop it. When one plan fails, a new one will simply emerge. No one will be happy until the aquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our society, at which point everything will be freely available simply because it betters humanity. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening any time soon. . .

Cuff him Danno....I have personally witnessed Prosecution. Its not pretty. But I warned them. They were busted on 209 count of stealing software. A vender use One copy of DOS to format many Drives. Today He and all involved are still In the slammer.. Due to be released 2007.

Why is this wrong to do, but yet it's OK to tape music off the radio? ( even if song quality isn't as good ). I can tape songs off of a casette tape/CD that I want and never have to buy the CD. Why should I buy a CD just to listen to only 1 or 2 songs on it that I like and the rest I don't like?

But I can also see the music industry's side of the argument, too. They can lose sales by people file sharing. It's an interesting argument, one in which the music industry will probably win in the future.

when your a student you simply cant afford all those cds. Here, a cd costs around 20 euros (+-22 dollars) and thats offcourse way to expensive. When will the record companies understand the law of economics. When your demand drops, you need to lower your prices. simple as that.
Another thing. I still buy cds. I get to learn to appreciate some music I TRY that is downloaded. The other day I bought the soundtrack of The matrix:Reloaded. You wanna know why? Because it was 17 € for 2 cds plus some cd-rom bonuses on the second disc.
I listen to various sorts of music, and most of the music i listen you don't even find on kazaa or whatever. that way you have to buy the cd.

THE FILE SHARING MANIFESTO

So now the music industry greedheads want to play rough. What’s the matter, their coke dealer won’t front anymore? Those techno-ghouls have been living high on the hog for the past 100 years and now they’re upset because the river of gold is down 10%. If they want to play rough, so can we. The only reason they can afford to pay their lawyers is because we all still buy CDs.

There is only one proper response to the file sharing attack – a complete and total boycott of all new recorded music purchases. Imagine if you got a summons in the mail. We must support our file sharing brothers and sisters. I SAY NO PURCHASES OF ANY NEW CDS OR DOWNLOADS UNTIL THEY CHANGE THE LAW ON FILE SHARING!! If you want music go to a show, or buy or trade used CDs.

Copy this and spread the word!

People who worry about the recording industry and the artist's royalties have been brainwashed. Music is a performing art - the key word here is performing. If artists want to get paid, they need to perform. Not live like ghouls on the ghosts of old echos.
Besides the whole industry is only the result of a technical glitch where it was easy to record, but difficult to copy. Those days are over. They all need to accept the new paradigm or fade away.

Consider the artists who have been most commercially successful on recordings. They have almost all been destroyed by that success. On the other hand an old dope fiend like Jerry Garcia survived for years despite his self destructive ways, largely because his recordings were not money makers and he had to tour.

Randy

I've been telling people to read this article at this online magazine I know. The posts here are well written, so this might not be that special, but I think this guy makes a cool point. Check it out!:

http://www.random-accuracy.com/arch.../db-073103.html

I buy mabe on CD a year. Why? Because they are too expensive for 2 songs I may like so, why should I pay for all the other songs? I don't...
If they would drop the price to $5.00, file sharing would drop considerably and I might purchase more music or sell the songs for $1.00 a piece over the web.
BTW- I don't download music unless it is posted as a free download like from MP3.COM.
The music industry has been ripping off the public for way too many years. It's time they take notice of what their customers actually want.

One thing that's interesting: many countries have sales tax on music. One case that proves the music industries greed though, is that of Australia. I think a few years ago they changed their tax system to include a GST... back then, CDs already had a 22 or so percent sales tax... the new GST was 10 percent, so they got rid of the 22 plus tax and replaced it with the 10 percent one... so CDs went down 3 dollars or so... funny enough, about a month or two after, the prices mysteriously rose once more...

Go figure.

For the record, I download music. I buy all cds I think are good (I buy around 5 CDs a month still... perhaps I'm just encouraging them, but I am just addicted to buying music) and I keep the mp3s of the music I think is just crummy (which is a lot, in recent days artists have been releasing fairly low rate albums...)

I don't know if lowering the price of CDs is going to happen, but I very well doubt it... record companies wont believe they'll make more money, they'll just feel they're losing it by lowering their prices. But one thing, they should accept is that people are going to download music, software, movies and more... it's an unbeatable problem. People have been pirating software for so long, they couldn't beat it (software prices just went up up up), and neither will the music industry.

if anyone gets techtv tonight (friday sept 12) watch the special music wars and open mic event going on for the contraversey between the RIAA and file sharers etc...

You can look at this from different angles. Art DOES belong to humanity and not to corporations, but nowadays art is made and sold for money. Let's say XYZ Records spent 1 million on new album and fell short on sales due to popularity of kazaa-like p2p sharing systems. What is XYZ Records' first thought? - To sue Kazaa and others for the money it lost. Who is right? I think recording studios, since it's pure business. Why do studios bother recording music and printing all these copies if nobody is going to buy them? If studios dont get money from sales, they cant pay salaries to artists, technicians, designers, etc. The idea is everybody pays for everything, so that those who get paid have the ability to buy goods, and so on.
Shutting down Kazaa would lead to creation of 5 more sharing networks, then there will be another lawsuit, another sharing system, and so on. Piracy should be stopped in it's root - all the FTP servers with private usernames/passwords that are protected by this stupid law saying that 'private property is not to be violated'. Well if i have a F-21 fighter at home, is it ok? No its not. So why is it ok for these people to store gigabytes of ripped music, videos, etc. on their FTP sites where it is accessible by everybody but not law enforcement authorities?

There is an interesting point within the topic.

In this country one can buy a pirated copy of new version of Oracle database server and other professional software of this kind for $3, while the licence is, say, $4k.

The local representatives of the vendors know it, but don't practically object, because a typical buyer is a IT student or an IT professional and they do it for the educational purpose.

The result is they install the software they know how to work with and their employers typically buy the licence, since their data is valuable.

File Sharing has grown at a steady pace since Napster kicked it all off. Napster only gave users the capability to download music. Now that there are peer 2 peer programs allowing users to download software, movies, games and anything you can think of it is not going to stop. A few law suites here and there will happen. They cannot and will not stop this. The internet is worldwide. Most of the music that is downloaded could very well be from another country. Artists don't even make much if anything off of thier own albums. Look at DMX his newest and last CD is it for him. He said the record company just screws them. This isn't about the artists of theft. All this is about is those few CEO's of the companys not gaining a couple dollars here and there which in turn happens to be millions. Let them suffer for awhile. We all have since Compact Discs came out, and prices have NEVER gone down.

There is always going to be piracy, copyright violations and plain old theft in this world. Nobody can resist the temptation of getting something for nothing. The key is to add value to it so people will WANT to pay. The record companies have to put something in the music that no one else can, even if it's something like an audio version of Macrovision.

The group P.O.D. has come up with a new advertisement for listeners to actually buy thier cd. They have added a DVD plus a PS2 game on it. Doubt it is worth much EX. (Graphics), but it is a start.

i think everyone that has said something 2 do w/ not going to pay for a whole cd wen they only want 2 listen 2 2-3 songs on it.. i feel strongly about that... and most of the people d/ling musiq "illagally" are all teenagers...-hint hint- some teenagers (13-15 years old) cant get a job cuz of there age and CANT pay for an 18$ c.d. i deffianetly cant i have mayb actualy bought only 4-5 (cds)within my life span..... and and its not like most of the people who d/l free musiq are makeing cd's (mixes) and selling them 2 other people so its not like we r takeing the artists money in that kind of way....idk i thot i would put my 2 cents in oh and i do d/l musiq for free....

i don't download music i just steal cds.

All I wanted it for was to simply download music.....I'm sort of a rookie. I was thinking Kazaa Lite but I can't seem to find it anywhere for free.


99

I just boycott the industry completely. I feel no need to download music or buy albums. Back in 2000, at the height of Napster, I discovered so many artists I never heard before. I was planning on buying slews of albums for myslef, but then I think the RIAA got greedy after their sales dropped (mind you, height of Napster had record sales) and then started going after the consumer. That's when I decided to not support these record companies that unfairly gouge the artists for their wealth.

I've always had the attitude, I'll buy it if I really like it, but not anymore, I just won't buy it. I say the solution to stick it to the music industry is to sell used CD's, thus they only make money off one CD, which you can copy for yourself, and then sell off the original.

I think if the industry had embraced Napster, they would be in better shape now and the filesharing network activity we see now would be substantially lower because people will generally agree with spending money on products.

I think these file sharing networks are scapegoats. They have to first know how many people would pay for the things they download in the first place. If people like a product, they'll usually buy it, that's why you still have huge box office successes at the movies. You can get anything free, but if you really like the product, you'll shell out the money for the product.

Music sales went down because of the lack of quality, the audience didn't like the music being put out by the studios. I listen to a Stevie Wonder album fro the 1970's, the whole album is good from first to last track. Listen to most albums today, you get 2-3 good tracks. When Napster was at its peak, record sales were very high, and the number of users using Napster ranged from the computer literate to illiterate. So I think to say filesharing has killed their sales is really not true, I believe they killed their own sales with a shoddy product.

The DVD market has been very successful despite the ease of downloading TV and movies. The quality is better and the package is worth it, so people buy it. Television shouldn't even care because they just use Neilson ratings anyway, so just monitor those people and you'll keep making yor money.

I'm boycotting the RIAA so they'll never see a cent from me, they could have record high sales one year, but knowing none of that is my money is fine with me. If they want to go through with these lawsuits and other legal action, then they should give up the tax they receive placed on blank CD and DVD media. They just look like money grubbers now. It's a business, but being too greedy deserves a punishment.

Take care about music files from P2P programs!!

I've downloaded the file "The_Best_Of_The_80s.rar" from kazaa, and when I've extrated the files my computer became slow, crazy and my antivirus software goes down. So, I've run the free scanning process available in a site called infectedornot.com and it found 3 trojan horses virus.

My personal advice: take care about music files from P2P programs!!!