Hey guys you need to read this.

[fishing n autograph]

Oh man.. who cares!

 

 

I agree Rich.....sitting at the Police College listening/learning about a lot a bad stuff.....downloading is the least of your worries.....

 

Consider this......

 

99% of all circulated (not the fresh crisp bills) paper currency in Canada will test positive for traces of cocaine....

[majorlifts]

Well John bacon, I think that responding to your reply would only spark debate that is left for other boards like mother Jones and so forth. If you read my reply, with any educated guess you could see that I have read a book or two.

 

I would pick up the book called silent coup, it would help you understand a bit more about corporate America that you seem to think you have the whip on.

 

For more educational reading I would suggest Dr seuss, one fish two fish red fish blue fish. Because after all that is what we are all here to talk about n'est pas?

 

 

 

With all due respect, flaming others doesnt work on this board, we are all fisherman and although we do not always agree on the same bait we all get along because of what we do agree on, fishing.

 

Peace my fellow human.

[camillj]

I havent bought music in over 25 years ... I used to buy alot of albums and tapes with my 'disposable income' ... so my $$$ availability to the 'artists' is ZERO ....

 

Having set the groundworks for the 'loss' argument I ask the following questions :

 

1) Whatever happened to driving across America to the 'bribe' the DJ's to play your music for FREE so EVERYBODY will hear it and talk about it .. and those who DO spend money on music will spend it on your titles

 

2) Why is dowloading any different than taping the songs off the radio (the big craze in the seventies) ... for those too cheap to buy the album of for those who simply couldnt get the mix they wanted on an album at an price ... or your favourite movie off of TV...

 

3) When you consider you are making money over and over and over selling basically AIR for work you did years ago how do you consider this stealing ... on the contrary .. the reason I will NEVER buy any more music is that I feel like I am the one who gets stolen from every time I buy a piece of music where the medium it came on is no longer supported and I have to start all over again and pay again for the right to listen to music I already paid for. I should at least get a trade in allowance .... anyhow ... imho the ONLY reason to enforce copyright is to prevent someone else from SELLING your material without having to pay you a royalty... its a B2B issue not a B2C one .. and IMHO the sooner the WORLD figures that out the sooner the world will be a better place ...and starving artists might actually find a following ...in my humble opinion

[Gerritt]

The recording industry's off-key strategy

 

 

Feb 19, 2007 04:30 AM

Michael Geist

Law Bytes

 

Ten years ago, as the Internet began to mushroom in popularity and emerging technologies enabled consumers to make nearly perfect copies of digital content, the recording industry embarked on a two-pronged strategy in response to the changing business environment.

 

First, it emphasized copy-control technologies, often referred to as digital rights management (DRM), that many in the industry believed would allow it re-assert control over music copying. Second, it lobbied the Canadian government for a private copying levy to compensate for the music copying that it could not control.

 

While the industry's approach proved successful on the legal front – the 1996 World Intellectual Property Organization's Internet Treaties established legal protections for DRM and Ottawa introduced a private copying levy on blank media such as cassettes and CDs in 1997 – the strategy's effectiveness has long been subject to debate.

 

The week of Feb. 5 may ultimately be viewed as the beginning of the end of that debate. That week, which began with Apple CEO Steve Jobs calling on the industry to drop DRM and concluded with the Canadian Private Copying Collective (CPCC), the collective that administers the private copying levy, applying for its dramatic expansion, leaves little doubt that the recording industry got it wrong.

 

The Steve Jobs position on DRM, which many derided as self-serving given that Apple is facing mounting pressure from European regulators to address the interoperability restrictions contained in music sold by its iTunes service, was also widely acknowledged by those same commentators to be right.

 

Digital right management supporters may claim that the technology encourages innovation, yet experience has demonstrated that reliance on digital locks frequently sink, rather than save, new business models.

 

The 2005 Sony "rootkit" debacle, which ultimately cost the company millions of dollars in class-action lawsuits, the market disappointments of new digital music players that rely heavily on DRM such as the Microsoft Zune, and the lack of support for digital music subscription services that insert burdensome restrictions on the use of downloaded music such as Rhapsody and Napster, offer compelling examples of why DRM has emerged as the industry's biggest impediment to consumer acceptance.

 

Indeed, many of the recording industry's leading digital sales channels, including Yahoo!, Real Networks (which owns Rhapsody) and Apple have now publicly called on the record labels to end their insistence on DRM. Moreover, last week a Jupiter survey of European music executives found that nearly two-thirds believe that dropping DRM would increase digital music sales.

 

Given the rising chorus against DRM, it is seemingly only a matter of time before the industry backs away from its locks-first strategy. EMI, the world's third-largest music label, is rumoured to be ready to do so and should one of the majors move in that direction, it is likely that the others will soon follow suit.

 

The private copying levy may survive somewhat longer, but it too appears to be nearing the end. The levy has generated an enormous amount of income (over $150 million since its inception), yet it is far more market distorting than its advocates anticipated, and much to the recording industry's dismay, it has provided peer-to-peer file sharers with a legitimate argument that downloading for personal, non-commercial purposes is lawful in Canada.

 

The latest demands from the CPCC swim against the global tide by calling for massive increases in the current levy system at a time when other countries are implementing new laws to authorize private copying (such as copying music from a CD to an iPod) without compensation.

 

U.S. copyright law has long permitted this form of copying as a matter of fair use (something even the industry acknowledged before the U.S. Supreme Court), Australia enacted a law to allow for such copying last year, and both New Zealand and the United Kingdom are currently considering similar legislative reforms.

 

The CPCC takes precisely the opposite approach. It is demanding an increase in the levy to 29 cents per blank CD, a price that would result in huge market distortions given that the collective admits the levy will account for more than half of the retail price of blank CDs.

 

Moreover, it is seeking to reinstate a levy of up to $75 on digital audio recorders such as the Apple iPod. The collective claims that the levy will exclude cellphones and PDAs by limiting its application to devices that primarily play music, however, distinguishing between devices is nearly impossible since dozens of products (Apple iPhone, BlackBerry Pearl, Palm Treo) are music players, cellphones, digital cameras and email devices rolled into one.

 

The CPCC is also seeking to extend the levy to storage media such as secure digital (SD) cards, despite the fact that its own data shows that 75 per cent of content copied on to these cards is not music and 80 per cent of people say that the content they last copied on to these cards was not music. These results will not come as a surprise to digital camera owners, yet that has not stopped the collective from demanding up to $10 per card.

 

These ambitious demands may well herald the end of the private copying levy. Unpopular with the public and targeted for elimination by the Conservative party, the levy has been overtaken by the prevailing view that consumers should be entitled to make copies of their store-bought music without further compensation.

 

While there may be a need for an alternative compensation system for peer-to-peer file sharing, the private copying levy is ill-suited for this role since it does not legalize the making available of content on peer-to-peer systems and the purchase of blank media bears little relation to P2P activity.

 

Indeed, there are better solutions out there – levies tied to network providers make more sense (and are already replicated by cable television levies for retransmission of content) – and there is a need to cover both peer-to-peer and the non-commercial use of content in user-generated content.

 

Those approaches will require the recording industry to play a new tune – one that includes the abandonment of the 1990s strategy of DRM and the private copying levy.

 

 

Michael Geist holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law.

 

 

 

Gerritt.

[camillj]

Ok .. crap ... I guess I gotta take it all back when I said I wont ever buy any more music ...

 

I just saw the Time 'Soft Rock' collection ... a 10 cd - 168 song collection for a mere $159 ... and came THIS >< close to buying it ... too bad they dont sell the 'mp3' edition ... then I wouldnt have to go through all the trouble of ripping it all onto another device (and risk breach of copyright in so doing) ...

[fcm420]

Well, i'll start by saying this is likely not the place to debate copyright issues...

 

but since we are.. here's my view on the whole scenerio..

 

I've been downloading games and music off the internet and bbs's for about 20 years...

 

What ive found during that time is a.) easily 80% of the content I download ends up being crap, poorly made or not living up to their marketing teams gimmick commercials...

 

in the end you get a game that you play for 10 minutes and never touch again..

 

If I was to have purchased that WOW would I have been ticked off. In the last 5 or so years you've seen a great many companies release Demo's of their games and music for free on the internet.. This is greatly improved the scenerio for people.

 

I always buy a game I enjoy playing..

 

and the fact that downloading the game before hand allows me to make a well informed decision on my purchase should simply encourage companies to ensure their product is living up to customer's expectations.

 

 

As far as music goes, 99% of all bands and music released these days are seriously production line generic crap music. They dont deserve money for what they put out.

 

When they start going back to real talent with bands and musicians that can write their own songs and sign them as good outside of a studio as in one.. then they will be worthy of payment.

 

until then.. Load up Piolet , Emule, Bit torrent , and download away.

 

 

 

Im a firm beleiver that if your a talented artist, you will have people willing to pay for your music, and more so willing to pay to see you perform.

 

If your just riding the music industries production line processes, well then I can only hope people continue to find ways to avoid paying for mass produced generic songs.

 

 

There is a reason that groups of musicians are banding together to fight against the RIAA and other music industry leaders.

 

The amount the musician is actually paid is Sad in comparrison to the total revenue taken in by the record label and production companies.

 

Very sad.

 

Lets find a way to pay the artists directly, cut out the big inflated factory sitting between us and the artists.

[walleyed]

BOO HOO

[Gerritt]

Welcome to OFC Walleyed!!! fantastic first post LOL

 

Sooo introduce yourself n stuff man!

 

Gerritt.

[Guest lundboy]

This thread is still alive?

 

Ok I'll bite....

 

Typical current Music CD

 

$1. goes to Artist

 

$8. goes to Record Company

 

$10.99. goes to Record Store

 

Total $19.99 cdn +tax

 

 

This example is from a friend who happens to be an artist in this situation.

 

He says he could release stuff directly on his own web site for .99/per song or $10/CD and still make more money.

 

I resent paying $19 to the middlemen. I would gladly support this type of pricing structure where the artist is treated fairly:

 

$5 goes to the Artist

$4 goes to the Record Company

$2 Goes to the Record Store

 

Total $11 cdn +tax

 

I won't touch on the fact that the majority of CD's out there today are now compilations or cover music, or may only have 1 or 2 songs worth owning for a similar $19-$24 price tag.

 

Several times I have taken advantage of HMV's listen before you buy program, where they open the CD in store and let you listen to the CD before you buy it. Out of probably doing this 15 times (newer CDs in the last 5 years), I have only bought one CD because the rest were not worth it.