I am an Illegal Music Downloader
I woke up this morning to the news that my favorite torrent site, OiNK has been shut down. OiNK was the best place around to get out of print music. I downloaded a lot of old Brazilian jazz I could never get on CD or vinyl unless I spent years scavenging garage sales. I downloaded a lot of tour-only music from newer bands.
I won’t lie, a couple times I downloaded a commercial album. OiNK is members only, and the way you keep your membership is by keeping your share ratio up. The best way to do that was by downloading some crap ass commercial album and sharing it for a day. And believe me, it was crap I deleted without even having listened to. The beauty of members only is the quality is kept much, much higher so the selection is unparalleled to.
Last week TV-Links was shut down. My cable company is crap. As such, even though I pay a zillion dollars each month for service (top tier, dvr, movie channels, the works) half my favorite shows come in scrambled. As such, I need to resort to watching them on the internet. Otherwise I’d have missed this season’s Desperate Housewives premiere. The unique thing about TV-Links is it wasn’t a download site. All shows were streaming.
Maybe I’m obtuse, but I don’t see what the harm was. With OiNK most people weren’t taking food out of the mouths of starving musicians. I was getting into new (sometimes old but new to me) music. I should also mention I buy probably 5x more music than the average person, and I buy almost exclusively on vinyl these days. (Thank you smarter record labels like Merge for offering me a free MP3 download with my record purchase.) I buy what I download, if it’s available for purchase.
With TV-Links I’m watching shows I’ve already paid for but missed because my cable company doesn’t have their act together. Do the television networks really hate me that much? If I miss it the first go around I have to wait until their expensive $60 DVD comes out? I don’t really buy television DVDs, because once I’ve watched a show no matter how much I like it, I don’t really care to watch it again. The exception to this would be comedy, because Arrested Development and Dave Chappelle can never get old. Regardless, I’m not paying $60 to watch something that was on network television that I would’ve had for free with a set of rabbit ears.
Now, I’m aware of the wonders of iTunes. And I tried to get the Desperate Housewives premiere there, but alas they didn’t have it. They don’t have most of the things I want, because I don’t listen to radio top ten garbage. I’m thinking about subscribing to eMusic, but their best plan is 19.99 a month for 75 downloads. That’s only about 7 albums. I generally buy a lot more than that a month. I frequently spend three times that for one record. And when I’m actually paying for music, I prefer to have the physical, tangible item.
So, RIAA and the television industry, why do you hate your customers? Why do you put up as many roadblocks as possible to keep me from your product? Why isn’t it okay for me to hear something before I decide if I want to pay you a 500% markup? Why is it okay for me to watch your shows for free on tv, but not on the internet? Why don’t you just put up a streaming service for your shows that’s better than your competition?
Lastly, nothing I want is affiliated with the RIAA. That’s right, I don’t buy or download any music from RIAA affiliated companies. I would do this as a political decision, but I don’t have to. Most of what they put out is crap I don’t want to listen to. So why can’t they mind their own business and let me go about downloading my jazz and 70s sludge jams that have nothing to do with them or their shady business? Oh, that’s right, it’s because they don’t discriminate. They hate all music listeners, not just their own.
Dear Beth Dean,
The reason the RIAA, publishers and the record industry is trying to stop non-paid for music downloading and unauthorized uploading is because it violates, not only our contracts with the artists, it violates the artists copyrights. Copying music without a license is illegal. When you buy a commercial release of a CD, you are then authorized to use it. The fair use laws would permit you to make a copy for yourself as a backup and a copy for your car and perhaps a couple for various locations in your home. But, if you sell the original copy, you’ve then forfeited your license for the copies you’ve made of it. Fair use does not include making copies for friends… or uploading into file sharing groups online.
Sorry. Theft is theft. If you had designed 50 web templates and offered them for sale… you wouldn’t be too pleased if you started finding them in use on hundreds of website without your having been paid and credited for having designed them. Do you give YOUR web design away?
Dear Beth Dean,
I like greeting cards. Do you think American Greetings (your employer) would mind if I scanned their cards and started printing copies to give to my friends and family? It would save me a lot of money. And if you want to get right into cost comparisons… the price of a greeting card surely represents a 500% markup!!!! For what? One hour design time, a lame cliche’ ridden poem, a piece of stiff paper, $00.000001 worth of ink, an envelope and recoupment for product placement?
All of that ends up costing what?: maybe $00.03 per card per sale at best? And then it sells for $2.95
Your remark about music CD’s being a 500% markup is not warranted.
Firstly, it costs an average of $2M to $3 million to release a new major artist!
It costs the average musician many years of lessons and instrument costs to get to the point where they are proficient enough to CREATE music for a CD. And usually, there are 3 to 40 musicians on a CD. They all deserve to be paid. The songwriter or composer has worked very hard to learn to write good material. The recording studios usually invest $150,000 to $5 million on recording gear to record music CDs. When an artist is signed to a label, and produces a CD that gets on the shelves at Walmart, the costs per CD are:
Peformance/recording:
$30,000 to $250,000 to record over a period of several months
CD release:
$1.00=manufacture per CD
$2.25=standard artists royalty is 12.5% of suggested retail X $17.98
$1.00=artwork & promotion
$2.25=to put the record on the store shelf / shipping
$1.00 publishing costs, (if you got 12 songs .07 X 12 songs)
cost of production recording - recouped from artists royalties
________________________
$7.50 in costs just to put it into the store.
The record label has not made a dime at this point.
If the CD sold for $17.98, Walmart and the CD’s distributor split the remaining profit of , usually about 60/40%. However, if the CD does not SELL, the record label will have to pay $2.25 for Walmart to ship it back!!!!
Worse… Walmart sells new releases for $9.72, after paying $7.29 for it… leaving little profit for the label & distributor.
Even worse… I-tunes will sell you ONE song for .99 which hardly pays the artist for his investments, OR for the cost of producing the song, it’s recording and it’s manufacturing.
Of 120 million users of MySpace, only 80,000 are registered to buy music.
For American artists, 2/3rds of every CD sold abroad are pirated copies.
Your claims of 500% inflation (for CD’s) is for your greeting cards, NOT for music!
FREE music isn’t free. When I start seeing American Greetings passing out free cards at Walmart… I’ll know you’ve lost your job.
Gary,
While your logic is cute, my employer and greeting cards are not the issue. Obviously you’re as ignorant about greetings as you seem to think I am about music, because my employer has found a way to make digital content into a viable revenue stream. I am not purporting a free download should replace a purchase in any way.
Second of all, my personal downloads are limited to non-RIAA artists, and primarily live or out of print recordings. Obviously a legitimate copy in any of these scenarios is preferable. My digital music not falling into these categories lies in a third, released for free as promotion from the artist.
I don’t know what world you live in where it costs $1 to manufacture a CD. Perhaps it costs a giant record company a bazillion dollars to release a CD because they have to pay for Ashlee Simpson promotional toilet paper, and another lump of cash to the engineer who digitally molded her voice into something almost listenable. You forget to mention most of this is recouped by the record company from the artists’ pay.
In the world of small labels and D.I.Y. where talent is what counts, these costs are simply not the same, because most of the middleman is cut out. Without the middleman these artists are able to enjoy a more intimate connection with their listeners, and build a fanbase who will buy most of their releases, go to their shows and buy their merch. (As opposed to the major label’s flavor of the week who sells a bunch of singles but releases a shit album and is never heard from again.)
Downloading should supplement purchasing. If I pay for a tangible copy of an album, give me the download free. Give me a free EP of throwaway tracks as promotion to get me hyped for a new album. Let me buy music that isn’t locked down to hell by DRM so I can listen to it on my iPod, on my work computer, or loan it to a friend.
The real issue, which you’ve missed, is one of quality. I can’t think of a single album I own that would be available for sale in a Walmart, and perhaps that’s your problem, assuming everyone is cattle herding into the local big box store for whatever album they’re selling for $9.95 down from the usual $17.95. Fans want to see artists compensated for their work, not diluted by cheap marketing ploys. If the major label industry wants to see more purchases, they should release better content.
Gary,
u mad?
Wow, Gary, you must be getting quite a nice RIAA kickback to be able to spend so much time trolling like this. Good to see Beth took care of you in short order.
A copyright is a copyright. When you end up with a un authorized COPY of music that you did not buy, you are in violation of established copyright laws. That is a fact.
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I gave you information DIRECT from the CEO of a major label. He was at one time VP or in a equal high management position of Warner Music, BMG and MCA.and has over 38 years employment as a record industy executive. And he is a friend.
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Musicians, songwriters & publishers become members of BMI or ASCAP in order to collect performance royaties generated when their music plays on radio, cable, TV, or other venues. This has nothing to do with RIAA, which is more like the AAA for motorists. There are no RIAA artists. However, there are just PEOPLE: who are artists, songwriters, studio musicians, cover and grpahic artists, publishers, producers, and numerous other people who are involved in producing a music CD product. Many of these talented people are ofen compensated by having negotiated for points or % of the actual CD sales. When you donwload P2P, from Ares or Limewire, these people are thus victims of your theft.
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You and people like you choose to believe unfactual information. It’s a free country… enjoy your self imposed dillusions. In response, I reiterate my previous posts here… as factual, accurate and truthful report of what it takes to produce, publish, promote, manufacture and release a NEW artist. Take it or leave it.
Thanks -Gary
AS far as Greeting Cards… at least 75% of the cards I see on the shelves are stupid, badly conceived and poorly written. So… does that mean I can justify stealing a handful of them for every good card I buy? Just wondering.
Hey Gary:
You are right on one thing: Under the copyright laws, that is theft.
But you know what Gary? This will never end. And that is a fact too!! You may shut down one file-sharing service, and in the meantime 5 or more new ones are created.
The RIAA may sue 10.000 people today, but there’s millions who will never get sued and they will not stop just because they fear the same will happen to them. Actually they DON’T. If 500 people get in a store to steal the same greeting card, go ahead and try to stop’em.
It’s still theft, but what you gonna do about it Gary? Are you gonna catch three and make’em pay for the other 497?
Eventually, the RIAA will stop making an ass of themselves and realize that they spend more money than they recover suing soccer moms and students. And if it’s not about the money, then what is it all about Gary?
For people on your side, this is a virus out of control, which you know you can’t stop from replicating. For the people on the other side, this is a revolution and everybody knows who already won it.
Oh, and another thing: you say there’s almost no profit for the record company and the artist, but, hey! I don’t see the record company’s workers on strike because they didn’t get paid last month! I don’t see that trash Britney Spears or Clay Aiken trying to make ends meet. Or what about those sure expensive lawyers they use to sue homemakers. Is your ex-CEO friend poor? Did he work ad honorem?
So the bands need to think ways to get known and get paid for their work in this new environment. There’s thousand of ways.
Getting rid of the record company is the first step, and that’s what all this is about. They know they are no longer necessary and that the end is near for them.
Your values and ethics speak for themselves. I need not critique you… because you’ve done a GREAT job defining who you are… and what you support and why. Thankyou. I am using all of this in several reports and complaint being made to the Library Of Congress division of Copyrights.
BTW…
The march is on… and it will ripple across the world and into your backyard soon enough:
IRISH COURT ORDERS ISPS TO IDENTIFY P2P USERS
The Irish Recorded Music Association on Thursday won a landmark ruling in the High Court in Dublin forcing six Internet service providers (ISPs) to reveal the names and addresses of individuals engaged in alleged illegal file-sharing.
The ruling is the culmination of a six-month operation undertaken by the industry body to stem the tide of Internet piracy in Ireland. IRMA says that it has targeted 23 individuals involved in the alleged illegal distribution of copyrighted music files. It maintains that five individuals are alone responsible for 108,000 shared illegal files, with one individual responsible for 37,500 files. The judge ordered the six ISPs — Digiweb, BT, Smart Telecom, Irish Broadband, NTL, Eircom and Imagine — to provide IRMA with the names and addresses of all twenty-three people involved.
To date the body has prosecuted some 66 individuals, 61 of which have paid financial penalties.
Dick Doyle, director general of IRMA, said the individuals involved are stealing from the artists and affecting the livelihood of many people in the music industry. He added that the association would do everything in its power to ensure they are brought to justice.
Thursday’s ruling comes a week after trade body the British Phonographic Industry, with the help of IRMA, successfully prosecuted operators of Internet retailer CD Wow for illegally importing CDs and music DVDs from outside the EEA and selling them to U.K. and Ireland residents.
—Nick Kelly, Dublin
“I am using all of this in several reports and complaint being made to the Library Of Congress division of Copyrights…”
What? You are using what? To do what? You are using blog replies to make a report to the Library of Congress? Very professional!!
I thought I was talking with an adult. Sorry.
And analyze what you read before calling me nothing. I’ve done nothing but telling you the truth, and because you don’t like it, you say I don’t have values and ethics?. Tell me Gary, what did I say that is not true? Where did I say that I support file sharing? YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU READ!! I don’t support file-sharing, because I rarely listen music. I have less than 20 CD’s total in my car because that’s the only place where I listen music. And most of the time is radio.
I said (and this time read it slowly and try to understand) that when millions of people do something wrong is impossible to stop’em so the bands need to find alternative ways to get paid for their work.
It’s more or less what happens in nature, YOU have to adapt to the environment, the environment it’s not going to adapt to you.
And I said that the records companies, if they don’t adapt too, they are going to be obsolete in this new environment. And that’s what they are defending. They don’t like that. They are trying to hold on to a system which is obsolete due to the technology everybody owns today.
Tell me, you don’t like to hear or read that file-sharing is never going to stop, Do you? Answer me this honestly: Do you think it’s going to stop? Please be honest.
And about that you wrote there, you are just showing everybody what I said before: It took them 6 months to catch 23 guys? Wow!, I guess this is the end of piracy Uh!?
You are one of those close minded people that when they hear somebody is thinking differently or in an open way just to see if they can help solve something, that instantly transforms him in your enemy.
Slowly but surely, media giants are learning how to make money on the net while getting their shills in washington to pass more and more strict anit-piracy laws. The coming end of net neutrality is going to mean greater and easier access to high quaility music and video on the net — at an increadably high price. I wouldn’t be surprised if in just a few years the average broadband user who subsribes to ‘legal’ music and video sites will find them selves paying a couple hundred dollars a month for broadband and media access. And we’ll pay it, because there won’t be any other option.
How much more pathetic the RIAA can get?
Watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxYGZ7Z6joQ
There are lots of gray areas, and I understand your frustration. But the bottom line is the copyright, and a law is a law. Like my friend likes to say,
“Sin is sin.”
I am all for paying for TV shows but what is important for me is to be able to watch a show at any time. I don’t want to wait until they come on DVD. I think if providers like iTunes start carrying more programs less people would download illegally.